Mārtiņš Nukša
Mārtiņš Nukša (29 September 1878 – 17 May 1942) was a Latvian diplomat and architect. He worked as an architect in Riga during the heyday of Art Nouveau architecture and from 1920 as a diplomat representing Latvia. He was arrested by Soviet authorities after the occupation of Latvia and executed in 1942. Biography Mārtiņš Nukša was born in Vidriži parish in present-day Latvia (at the time part of the Russian Empire). He studied architecture between 1900 and 1908 at the Riga Polytechnic Institute (present-day Riga Technical University), and immediately after finishing his studies set up his own architectural firm in Riga. He also studied law abroad. During his career as an architect in Riga, he designed about 20 multi-storey apartment buildings in the city, most of them in Art Nouveau style. In 1915, he was working with railway construction in Moscow. Between 1916 and 1918 he was the City Architect of Sevastopol, and in 1919 he was appointed as assistant City Architect of Marseille, France. From 1920 he worked as a diplomat for his newly independent homeland Latvia. His first assignment was in France. In 1921, he was appointed as ambassador to Poland, in 1922 to Romania and in 1925