High-rise building of the Academy of Sciences

The high-rise building of the Academy of Sciences is a 21-storey high office building in Riga, which is considered to be the first high-rise building in Latvia. The design and construction of the high-rise building began in 1951, but the building was completed in 1958, the building was not considered complete until 1961. Its architects are Osvalds Tīlmanis, Vaidelotis Apsītis and Kārlis Plūksne.
Initially, the building was designed as a kolkhoz house, but after the construction was completed, it was handed over to the LPSR Academy of Sciences. In the practice of high-rise construction, prefabricated reinforced concrete structures were used in the building of the Academy of Sciences for the first time in the USSR. The compositional structure with a combination of stair-like forms was close to many high-rise buildings of that time, however, the architects tried to adapt the building to the peaks of the Old Riga towers. The exterior is made of natural and artificial stone slabs, which are sent from Russia – each packed separately in polyethylene film.