Sopot - Cranz - Riga Beach

The first seaside resorts on the Baltic coast were built around 1800. Initially, they were rather comfortless, offering only simple "bathing machines" for changing and cold pools. The bathing facilities were used for healing various illnesses, but also, from the outset, for relaxation and entertainment. The infrastructure of the baths developed rapidly: warm swimming pools were built, and ever-larger jetties were extended out into the sea. Later, with the arrival of the railway, small fishing villages became centers of entertainment, where "the whole world" could gather for leisure.

Over time, a very specific bathing culture developed, which this exhibition presents and explores in detail through the example of three Baltic seaside resorts – Zoppot , Cranz  and Riga Strand (Jūrmala) . The main areas of focus are the landscape and general history of the resorts, their spatial design, visitors, recreational activities and entertainment, as well as the architecture of the baths in the successive periods of the 19th century, the interwar years and the time of National Socialism, socialism/communism, as well as after the collapse of communism. The differences and common features of the three seaside resorts on the southern Baltic coast are presented.

Accompanying the exhibition, Olga Kurilo, a professor of Eastern European history and private lecturer at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), published a book of the same name in 2011 entitled “Zoppot, Cranz, Rigascher Strand. Ostseebäder im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert”.