The building of the Latvian Academy of Sciences in Riga, at Akadēmijas laukums 1 is one of the most remarkable examples in Latvia of the so-called Socialist realism architecture of the Stalinist periodThe artistic image of the building also bears striking similarity to “the seven sisters” of Moscow – seven high-rises that were constructed in the 1950s to prove that the capital of the socialist Soviet Union was as good as Western capitalist cities. The architecture of these buildings was presented as a new contribution of the socialist system to the culture of humanity. The idea for the image of Stalin’s high-rises was actually not proposed by communist ideology but rather borrowed from the archenemy – Western culture. The direct precursors of “Socialist realism” high-rises are the Smith Tower in Seattle, Washington (1911–1914), the Woolworth Building in New York (1913) and the Wrigley Building in Chicago (1919–1924). Today high-rises with a stepped composition again start appearing in the world architecture. Among these structures the building of the Latvian Academy of Sciences takes a proper place not only in the local but also in the global architectural heritage.