Iconic Kaunas Police building to get a facelift

Kristina Karlonė, LRT TV, LRT.lt2021.08.22 12:00

The Kaunas County Police Headquarters have been relocated from its modernist 1930s office, which is set to undergo repairs.

The police headquarters building was constructed in 1933 and is listed as architectural heritage.

The building is also linked to Lithuania’s tumultuous twentieth-century history, as arrested anti-Soviet partisans were kept in the cells of the basement, says Roma Bernadišienė, the architect in charge of repair works.

“A good friend of my father – I used to call him my second father – partisan Vytautas Balsys-Uosis was imprisoned in one of these cells. He’s no longer here today,” Bernadišienė tells LRT TV. “He planned his escape from this cell and almost succeeded, but his fate afterwards was sad.”

The architect intends to preserve one of the basement cells, with the prison door showcased in an exhibition. The building also sports a unique stained glass windows with the coat of arms of independent Lithuania.

“Some of the stairs are hidden under granite slabs. We will be pulling it all down carefully, we will see what we can preserve,” says Ramunė Balandžiūnienė, head of heritage restoration and management at Virmalda. “We don’t know what we will find, there is a lot that’s obscure and has to be discovered, just like in most heritage objects.”

The building was designed by the Lithuanian architect Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis. It was one of the largest office buildings built in Lithuania before World War Two.

“A special attention will be given to the facade. It belongs not only to the user, but also to the public, which can see it, enjoy it, value it. We will have to be careful in preserving it,” says Virginijus Rabačius, director of Virmalda.

The repairs will take two years and are estimated to cost 5 million euros. The Police Headquarters will be moved back into the renovated building.