Engineer and author Tiit Masso dies aged 90

Estonian engineer, lecturer and construction writer Tiit Masso died on November 4, aged 90, ERR reported. He worked as a leading engineer and designer while also writing and editing books that shared technical knowledge with professionals and the wider public.

Masso contributed to more than 100 Estonian-language books on construction and architecture. His own titles included Construction Designer’s Handbook (1980), Small Houses (1990), Log Houses: Construction and Building (1991) and Building Physics ABC: Heat, Moisture, Noise (2012). He also produced expanded editions of the handbook between 2010 and 2014.

For a broader readership, he wrote 100 Buildings (1983), a book introducing world architecture and construction art that had a print run of 20,000 copies. He worked as an editor at the Estonian State Publishing House from 1958 to 1964 and edited the magazine Ehitus ja arhitektuur from 1972 to 1990. His other work included compiling, translating and editing dictionaries, guidelines and university textbooks on construction.

As a structural engineer and designer, Masso worked at Eesti Tööstusprojekt from 1964 to 1968, the Tallinn branch of Tsentrosojuzproekt from 1968 to 1990, and EstKonsult from 1990 to 1999. From 1999, he worked at a consultancy bearing his name.

Buildings designed with his involvement included the Pirita beach building and Tallinn Kaubamaja, both completed in 1979, the former ETKVL building in Tallinn (1981), the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute dining hall and club (1982), shops in several Estonian towns and the Võru bread factory (1983).

After Estonia regained independence, Masso took part in designing the structures of the City Plaza office building in Tallinn. He and engineering firm Pike received a special award for the structures in the 2004 Building of the Year in Concrete competition. He also worked on the reconstruction of buildings in Tallinn’s Rotermann industrial quarter and the design of a gymnasium for schools in central Pärnu, and advised on an architectural competition for a new Estonian Academy of Arts building in 2014.

Masso was a founding member and honorary member of the Estonian Association of Civil Engineers. In 2001, the president awarded him the Order of the White Star, Fifth Class.

Born in Tallinn on December 21, 1935, Masso graduated with honours from Tallinn’s architecture and construction technical school in 1954. He completed a degree in industrial and civil engineering at Tallinn Polytechnic Institute in 1960 while working.

An avid hiker, cyclist and skier, Masso also pursued amateur photography and led hiking trips from the Carpathians to the Altai. He is survived by his wife, five children and four grandchildren. His funeral will take place at 2 p.m. on November 12 at Valdeku funeral hall.