Partially realized modernist heritage of Vilnius

Abstract

During the WW II Vilnius lost more than a half of its population, the whole generation of architects, almost a half of its buildings were destroyed. But in the second half of the 20th century, like many other European cities, Vilnius experienced major urbanization and industrialization processes. Till the early 1990-ies the city‘s area increased several times, as well as the number of its citizens exceeding half a million. This new city that emerged in the light of “construction of communism“ still is considered controversial. On the one hand, during the post-war period industrialized mass construction was practised in the whole continent (in the East, as well as in the West). But, on the other, in the Eastern Europe it had a strong political flavour – the mass construction here served as an attribute of new communist regime. Such rapid expansion had led to essential changes in the city structure and cityscape. Within the period of 1945–60, the city was developed by densifying or restoring the building structures devastated during the war. During the times of Soviet occupation, architecture in Lithuania evolved in compliance with the political directives of the USSR and legislation framework of the time. Thus in the post-war period, in Lithuania, as well as in the remaining part of the USSR the retrospective stylistics in architecture was followed. In 1955, based on the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR ‘Considering the Elimination of Intemperance 1 13 in Design and Construction’, Lithuania as well as the whole USSR shifted to designing industrialized and typified architecture. The earliest modernist objects designed after the war were realized only in the late 1950ies. But most were created and constructed starting with the beginning of the 1960ies. Today the architecture works of this period are understood by many architecture researchers as an integral part of the epoch of Modernism. Return to the modernist ideology in architecture coincided with the processes of rapid urban development. Previously grown mostly within its historic boundaries, after the 1960ies, both the area of Vilnius and its population grew by several times. This was the time of design and construction of huge mono-functional residential, industrial, health care and educational districts. They contained not a few realizations of public and residential buildings, as well as other functional structures, not merely original in artistic sense, but also responding to relevant architecture challenges of the time.