The building of the Latvian Academy of Sciences in Riga, at Akadēmijas laukums 1 (1953–1958, architects O. Tīlmanis, K. Plūksne, V. Apsītis and others) is one of the most remarkable examples in Latvia of the so-called Socialist realism architecture of the Stalinist period. The initial idea was to create a high-rise building that would be a hotel for members of collective farms. Therefore its original name – the House of Collective Farmers – still sticks to the building although right away after its completion it became a home for the Latvian Academy of Sciences. The 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. Lomonosov Moscow State University was the first high-rise built in Moscow (1948–1953). Buildings similar to the Moscow “seven sisters” were introduced also in other capitals of the Soviet bloc countries, e.g. in Warsaw (Palace of Culture and Science; 1952–1965), in Prague (Hotel International; 1951–1956) and in Bucharest (Publishing House of the Communist Party; 1952–1956). 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 borned by communist ideology but rather borrowed from the archenemy – Western culture. One of the first and most typical high-rises the visual image of which rather blatantly resembles later Stalinist edifices is the Municipal Building (1907–1915) in New York. 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). Soviet architects used the same principles of massing in the 1950s, only in terms of architectural language taking a step back instead of advancing forward. Today high-rises with a stepped composition again start appearing in the world architecture e.g. “Stalin’s eighth sister” – the Triumph-Palace in Moscow (2001–2003), the Abraj Al Bait complex in Mecca (2004–2010) and the tallest building (818 m) in the world today – Burj Dubai in Dubai (2003–2009). 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.