Renaissance architecture was a more elaborate and colorful replacement for the austere Gothic, with more small details on facades.

While elsewhere in Europe Renaissance was also a period of “rebirth of sciences after the religious centuries”, for Latvia this meant a period of destruction. The religious states that dominated Latvia collapsed, and centuries of alternating foreign regimes and warfare inbetween them came in.

As such, relatively few Renaissance buildings exist in Latvia.

The most famous Renaissance building in Latvia is likely the Blackheads house. It is actually a reconstruction however, as the original one was destroyed by Soviets.

There are also several Renaissance churches and a castle in Bauska, but, all in all, Gothic continued to dominate the Latvian cityscapes throughout the Renaissance period as there was both little need and possibility to construct something new.