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Kaunas State Insurance Institution

Kaunas, Lithuania
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L. Mykolaicio nuotrauka, 2018 m.

The building of the State Insurance Institution is a part of a fragment of A. Mickevičiaus Street, which was intensively built in the 1930s, between the present Karaliaus Mindaugo Ave. (then Port Kranto St.) and Miško St. At the same time, the Insurance Office was built on the adjacent plot, and a few years later, the Sickness Funds building was erected on the other side of the street. Thus, on the outskirts of Naujamiestis, a complex of simultaneous buildings of considerable scale was formed, which probably had become a specific attraction.

Although the Faculty of Medicine and the Insurance Office buildings were built almost together, it was not easy to harmonise the architectural solutions of the adjacent buildings. The archival material also contains documents which testify to the Building Inspectorate's comments on the harmony between the buildings and the less than friendly remarks of the two institutions towards each other (there was a disagreement about the juxtaposition of the firewall of the Faculty of Medicine and the building of the Insurance Institution).

From today's point of view, such correspondence vividly illustrates the architectural mentality of the time. For example, the chief building inspector A. Novitski wrote to the architect Gordevičius that "the construction of the State Insurance Institution is not going to be completed. The upper parts of the Insurance Institution and the Faculty of Medicine (cornices and parapets) do not fit well together. The opening of the window facing the front courtyard of the Faculty of Medicine does not match the windows of the University at all. The rear gable on the side of the Technical School is crooked, and the separate high cornice at that end of the building is unaesthetic. All this needs to be sorted out. It is clear that the architectural coherence of the street layout and the aesthetics of the building were given considerable attention.

An even more interesting remark was made about the columns on the façade: 'the Building Council, after reviewing the design of the Tamsti Palace, stated that the columns on the façade do not support anything, which is not entirely justifiable aesthetically'[3]. It is true that such remarks, which could be said to have been inspired by modernist thought, were not implemented. The façade was not only decorated with half-columns but also with solid sculptural decoration. Paradoxically, the sculptures in the upper part of the façade are not marked in the original design. So the building ended up being even more decorative than the criticised design.

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