One of the winners of the Latvian Architecture Award 2025 is the young architect Marta Ventere. Together with like-minded enthusiasts, she is developing a hiking route on the eastern border of Latvia, bringing human architecture into the landscape by building cabins together with local residents, where anyone can stay overnight while exploring the border region. In the Nice Touch section, Marta talks about ways to relax your mind on the long autumn evenings.
«When I have a lot of work, I occasionally need a creative break. These are complemented by music and culinary experiments in the kitchen. Music helps me get in the mood and sometimes brings unexpected colourful twists to the process, while cooking allows me to completely switch off from the problems that weigh on my mind. Paradoxically, it is precisely when my hands are busy cutting onions or peeling potatoes that my thoughts and unresolved issues sort themselves out.
That’s why I’m putting two things in my Nice Touch basket: a music album that I particularly love, Into Silence: Pärt, Vasks, Górecki, Pelēcis, which resonates with the melancholic mood of November, and a dark blue Le Creuset Dutch oven. A year ago, it travelled from a friend’s family in the Netherlands to our kitchen, and now, given a second life, it turns cooking into an even more enjoyable and unhurried, almost meditative process — especially on holidays, when a larger group of friends gathers around the table!»
Marta Ventere is interested in socially responsible architecture that helps solve the challenges of the 21st century. Marta has a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the RISEBA Faculty of Architecture and Design. She has gained practical experience working at architect Liene Šiliņa’s studio, Noonsoon (2024), and currently Marta is looking for supporters to help her and her teammates set up their own studio and workshop, which would help them bring their project, Hiking the Borderland, to life. Read more about the project here.
Viedokļi