Onlyonly Studio Wraps a Shimmering Curtain Pavilion Inside Riga's Zeppelin-Hangar Market

Riga Central Market is one of those rare buildings that carries the weight of two unlikely histories at once. Built in 1930 from the repurposed metal frames of World War I German Zeppelin hangars, it folds military engineering into Neoclassical and Art Deco civic architecture. Five pavilions house Europe's largest market, all of it sitting within Riga's UNESCO-listed historic center. Into this already layered context, Onlyonly Studio has placed Pavilion Within: a 100 square meter temporary installation inside the Meat Pavilion that operates as a degustation zone, event space, and quiet argument for how textile architecture can coexist with industrial heritage.

What makes the project genuinely compelling is its refusal to compete with the existing structure. The exposed steel trusses of the Zeppelin hangar frame are the room's dominant feature, and any solid insertion would have fought them for attention. Instead, designers Harijs Vucens and Anna Līva Traumane chose translucent metallic curtains as the primary enclosure material, creating a pavilion that reads as atmosphere rather than object. The result is a space that flickers between presence and absence, a room you can see through and yet feel enclosed within.

A Room Made of Light and Fabric

The curtains, manufactured by ALAN DEKO, hang from a tubular steel canopy frame to form a continuous perimeter enclosure. Where the fabric parts at entry points, it drapes in soft scallops that recall the improvised shelters market vendors have assembled for decades. The translucency is the key move: from outside, the pavilion registers as a luminous volume under the trusses; from inside, the surrounding market becomes a diffused backdrop. A horizontal light bar runs along the base, casting a warm stripe that accentuates the curtain's metallic sheen and defines the pavilion's footprint on the ground plane.

The interior maintains deliberate simplicity. A wooden booth structure occupies part of the enclosure, providing a fixed service point for degustation events, while the rest of the space remains open and reconfigurable. The steel and fabric combination keeps the material palette lean, letting the curtains do nearly all the spatial work.

The Curtain as Architectural System

Calling this a curtain undersells what it actually does. The textile enclosure is an adaptable system that allows the pavilion to shift between fully open, semi-enclosed, and private configurations. For a tasting event with 50 guests, the curtains close to form an intimate room. For a public activation during market hours, panels pull back to dissolve the boundary between installation and marketplace. This flexibility is not cosmetic; it is the core programmatic strategy, allowing a single 100 square meter footprint to serve culinary tourism, cultural programming, and social gathering without any physical reconfiguration of hard elements.

The overhead canopy frame, visible in its exposed tubular steel geometry, carries linear fluorescent fixtures that light the curtain volume from above. At night, or as the market's natural light dims, the pavilion transforms into a glowing lantern beneath the dark trusses. The architects understand that in a temporary installation, atmosphere is the architecture. Every design decision, from the curtain's translucency to the placement of light strips, serves the production of mood.

Heritage Without Nostalgia

The project aligns with New European Bauhaus principles of sustainability and cultural inclusion, but it earns that alignment through design decisions rather than rhetoric. The installation touches the existing building lightly. The steel frame is freestanding, the curtains are removable, and no permanent modification to the Meat Pavilion is required. This is adaptive reuse at its most respectful: adding a contemporary layer without subtracting anything from the original.

There is also a conceptual resonance worth noting. The Zeppelin hangars were themselves repurposed, their wartime metal frames given new life as market pavilions in 1930. Pavilion Within extends that logic of transformation by another generation. It does not mimic the Art Deco vocabulary of the market or pastiche its structural language. Instead, it introduces a contemporary material and spatial strategy, the curtain enclosure, that acknowledges the building's history of reinvention while proposing its next chapter.

Plans and Drawings

The floor plan reveals the scalloped curtain perimeter in full, with each drape point corresponding to a support on the overhead steel frame. A central rectangular void defines the service area, while the surrounding open floor accommodates flexible seating and circulation. The elevation drawing makes the two-tier curtain strategy legible: metallic fabric panels at two heights, separated by horizontal lighting bars, with the steel column structure visible behind. Together, the drawings confirm that this is a precisely engineered system disguised as something soft and provisional.

Why This Project Matters

Temporary installations in heritage buildings walk a narrow line. Go too bold and you disrespect the host; go too quiet and you become invisible. Pavilion Within lands exactly where it needs to, creating a distinct spatial experience that never overwhelms the Meat Pavilion's industrial grandeur. The choice of translucent metallic curtains as the primary enclosure is both practical and poetic: practical because it allows rapid reconfiguration and minimal structural intervention, poetic because it transforms with light and creates a sense of enclosure that is more felt than seen.

For architects working on interventions within listed or historically significant buildings, this project offers a clear lesson. You do not need mass or permanence to make a room. A well-considered textile system, precise lighting, and a deep understanding of the existing context can produce architecture that feels consequential at 100 square meters. Onlyonly Studio has given Riga Central Market something it lacked: a contemporary gathering space that honors the building's century-long story of reinvention while proving that the next transformation can be as light as a curtain.

Pavilion Within by Onlyonly Studio. Riga Central Market, Riga, Latvia. 100 m². 2025. Design team: Harijs Vucens, Anna Līva Traumane. Production and metalwork: Uģis Traumanis. Project management: Rīgas nami, Ilona Anževska, Ieva Zībārte.

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