Teodor Ussisoo (also Theodor Ussisoo; 27 February 1878

Paide Paide is a town in Estonia and the capital of Järva County, one of the 15 counties of Estonia. Etymology Paide's German name (originally or in Low German) means 'white stone'. This name was derived from the limestone used for the constru ...

– 26 September 1959,

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

) was an

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n pedagogue, furniture designer, and interior architect.

Biography

He attended a district school between 1888–1894 and a railway technical college in Tallinn between 1895 and 1898. In 1909 he graduated in furniture making in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, and in 1913 interior architecture at the

Köthen Köthen () is a town in Germany. It is the capital of the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld in Saxony-Anhalt, about north of Halle. Köthen is the location of the main campus and the administrative centre of the regional university, Anhalt Univers ...

Technical Art School. He worked as a school teacher in Tallinn and was appointed the head of the State Technical School in 1922. Ussisoo was responsible for the designs of the first

Estonian kroon The kroon (sign: KR; code: EEK) was the official currency of Estonia for two periods in history: 1928–1940 and 1992–2011. Between 1 January and 14 January 2011, the kroon circulated together with the euro, after which the euro became the sole ...

s and postage stamps issued after the establishment of the Estonian republic in 1918. Ussisoo was arrested by the

Soviet occupation During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into three differe ...

authorities in 1949 and deported to

Krasnoyarsk Krai Krasnoyarsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia located in Siberia. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Krasnoyarsk, the second-largest city in Siberia after ...

and was released in 1956. His son Uno Ussisoo was an encyclopedist and translator.

References

1878 births 1959 deaths People from Paide People from Kreis Jerwen 20th-century Estonian painters 20th-century Estonian male artists 20th-century Estonian artists Estonian architects Recipients of the Order of the White Star, 3rd Class Recipients of the Order of the Estonian Red Cross Estonian Gulag detainees {{Estonia-artist-stub