Origo Universi
Origo Universi stands near Riga’s Origo shopping centre, within the capital’s historic centre and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its horizontal face fills a circular plaza. A crescent-shaped ellipse forms the main structure, measuring about seven metres across within the nine-metre sundial. Stone, metal, and glass create a mosaic of compass directions and zodiac signs.
Artist Valdis Majevskis created the work as a gift to Riga for its 2014 European Capital of Culture celebrations. More than 200 solar-powered LED glass elements gather daylight and glow after sunset. Sunlight lets you read the precise time with your shadow, while coordinates point towards eleven Latvian medieval castles. Other markers lead towards significant cultural sites in European cities, connecting timekeeping with geography and history.
Astronomer and computer scientist Dr Mārtiņš Gills contributed to the project’s theoretical aspects. Educational programmes with the Latvian Astronomical Society have shown schoolchildren links between shadows, the solar system, and natural science. During the Staro Rīga light festival, the glowing elements join the city’s nighttime landscape. After sunset, solar-powered glass keeps this public artwork visible as a meeting point in central Riga.
- City
- Riga
- Content updated
Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Riga. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.