Gunnar Birkerts

The building of the National Library of Latvia is a landmark of the capital city of Riga, a spatial symbol and architectural icon, created by one of the 20th-century-renowned modernists, the Latvian-born American architect Gunnar Birkerts. His metaphorically saturated and expressionist architecture has established its permanent place in the history of contemporary architecture. The unique creative style of Birkerts stems from his deep cultural roots in Latvia, his architectural studies in Germany after World War II and the first years of architectural practice in the USA learning from the Finnish architect Eero Saarinen and the Japanese architect Minoru Yamasaki.