Due to its impending proposal and my budding interest on modern architecture I added Kaunas to my baltic ittinerary. Now, I want to make clear that I'm not an architect and I feel in no way capable of examining the merit of kaunas modernist buildings. What I can offer is my opinion on the site, which overall was positive.

After WW1 Lithuania emerges as a new nation born out of the crumbling Russian empire. However they're stuck with an unusual problem. Their historic capital, Vilnius, is not part of their state, but rather part of neighboring Poland. As such the newly founded states sets out to build a capital basically from scractch following the architcetural trends of the time. They choose Kaunas as the place to do this. During the interwar period around 1200 buildings are erected in the city. Many of them are still kicking around which allows for a wonderfull insta-shot of how architecture looked at the time. At least thats what the proposal states.

Kaunas does in fact have lots of modern architecture and its easy to grasp even to the untrained eye. some of these buildings I found particularly enticing (the iljiani family house, the artist house and Christs resurrection church). However the strong suit of Kaunas is that its an ensemble. You really can just stroll around and find good examples of cutting edge interwar architecture in every corner of the new city. Even with a whole day I couldn't see all the buildings I wanted to see. Even so I thoroughly enjoyed my visit.

About that. I recommend going to the tourist office (Laisves Al 36). They have a nifty map about modernist architecture in Kaunas, which you can also find it at kaunas.lt. It's pretty comprehensive.

From a historical perspective, The collapse of the Russian empire is a monumental event and this certainly adds another layer to the proposal. Many countries in eastern Europe had their very first take at independence (or at least the first in a very long time) after the Brest-Litovsk treaty. This makes kaunas a particularly symbolic site for lithuania and the region, in general. This is especially true in the light of current events in Ukraine. What I'm trying to say is that this is a bit of a jab at Russia.