Estonian architect and heritage protector Fredi Tomps dies at 98

Architect and heritage conservationist Fredi-Armand Tomps died at the age of 98, ERR reported. He lived from 27 May 1928 to 5 September 2026.

Tomps had the longest experience among Estonia’s heritage conservationists and architects. His work protecting Estonia’s heritage began in spring 1948, when he and fellow architecture students cleared the ruins of the war-damaged St Nicholas Church.

He was one of the founders of the Estonian Open Air Museum and an advocate for valuing farm architecture in Lahemaa National Park. Tomps worked at the Scientific Restoration Workshop and was part of the team that prepared the heritage conservation area in Tallinn’s Old Town.

Under Tomps’s leadership, the State Inspectorate for the Protection of Architectural Monuments was established in 1969. It organised heritage conservation in Estonia until the Heritage Board was founded in 1993.

Tomps had been a member of the Estonian Association of Architects since 1964. In 1971, he became the first Estonian to join the International Council on Monuments and Sites, known as ICOMOS. He was also elected an honorary member of ICOMOS Estonia.

In 2019, Tomps received the Order of the White Star, Third Class. He remained active until 2020 at his own architectural office and at the company Estonian Restorer, where he worked as an architect and organised further training.

In 2024, the extensive collected volume My Century: Heritage Conservationist Fredi Tomps was published. Tomps compiled the book together with Riin Alatalu.

Tomps’s wife was art historian Niina Tomps, who died in 1987. His daughter, Enel-Katrin Vahter, is also an architect, while his son, Leho-Toomas Tomps, works as an engineer-restorer.