Hanseatic merchants requested the landmark, and Bishop Johannes III Orgas approved it on April 20, 1500. Tallinn's city council funded it through a special lighthouse tax. War and plague delayed it, spending ran from 1514 to 1532, and completion is dated to 1531. The article names no builder and gives no formal style. It describes a square tower with massive buttresses on all four sides.
The walls are local limestone and glacial boulders with lime mortar, around 12,000 tonnes of stone. The tower is 124 feet (37.7 m) tall, and the light is 340 feet (103.6 m) above sea level. It was raised in later centuries, and a lantern was added in 1860. Bombing damaged it in 1941, and a concrete shell was added in 1989 and 1990.
The Estonian Maritime Administration still runs it as a navigation aid. It has been open to tourists since 1999.
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