There were very few larger and architecturally outstanding objects for medical purposes in interwar Lithuania: “Throughout the hospitals around the Republic there were only three thousand beds”. A quite significant part of smaller towns and town hospitals were wooden, which was far from being par with the increasingly modern society. The construction of such objects gained momentum only after Lithuania’s gradual recovery from the economic crisis: “In 1937 Kėdainiai, Zarasai and Šakiai District hospitals were opened. Marijampolė, Mažeikiai, and Alytus hospitals were under construction, drafts for Raseniai, Telšiai and Seinai District hospitals were being prepared”. The new Health Insurance Fund building in Kaunas was one of the first manifestations of this process. Unfortunately, even though construction volumes were growing, which indicated the rebirth of the health insurance system, the architecture of new objects remained in between historicism and modest modernism. The Health Insurance Fund also had a similar style: we can see vertical rows of narrow windows characteristic of public buildings of the temporary capital, curved structures, and the brought-out corner section of the building with a simple ledge. In terms of functionality, the Health Insurance Fund with its dispensaries for the “working classes” is a lot more modern.
Vaidas Petrulis