Modernist Kaunas: Architecture of Optimism, 1919-1939
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How it came to be
Kaunas received town rights from Grand Duke Vytautas in 1408. After Lithuania declared independence in 1918, the government withdrew from Vilnius to Kaunas in January 1919. Vilnius remained part of Poland until 1939, so Kaunas served as the 'temporary capital', a status never set down in any official document.
In 1919 the rest of the Žaliakalnis area was brought into the city. Under Jonas Vileišis, mayor from 1921 to 1931, the city grew from 18 to 40 square kilometres, gained water and sewage systems, had all its streets paved and replaced horse-drawn transport with buses. Architects trained abroad, such as Feliksas Vizbaras, educated in Riga, and Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis, educated in Rome, brought new ideas home.
Vizbaras's Central Post Office opened in 1931, and the Officers' Club was built between 1931 and 1937. The Church of Christ's Resurrection, begun in 1933, became a radio factory in 1952 and was returned to the faithful only in 1990. The city's interwar architecture received the European Heritage Label in 2015 and was inscribed in 2023.
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