Embassy of the Republic of Estonia

About

This is the first Estonian embassy abroad built after its regained independence in 1991, and the first building in Vilnius specially designed for an embassy.

The project was selected in an architectural competition in 1996. At that time, the project by the young Estonian team “3+1 architects” amazed with its modern Scandinavian calmness and technological innovations, while the contemporary architectural culture in Lithuania was based on an abundance of facade details, oblique or tilted walls in building plans, and other expressive, geometrized, and colorful principles of the Postmodernist style.

A solid grayish-blue limestone, one of the traditional Estonian building materials, was used for the facade of the building facing the street. The chosen blue color reflects the Estonian identity and blue cornflower fields. The first frameless glass facade in the Baltic States is also installed here, which was attached directly to the building’s structure, symbolizing the then-high technological level and quality.

Construction of the Estonian Embassy building was completed in 1998, and a year later, in 1999, it was nominated for the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Architecture Award, one of the most important and well-known architecture competitions in Europe.