Higher Technical School (now Kaunas Technical College)

Address: Kauno m. sav., Kauno m., Tvirtovės al. 35

Following the restoration of independence and with the demand for qualified specialists growing, in 1920 the government ordered the construction of the Higher Technical School. Rapidly growing popularity of higher education at the beginning of the thirties indicated the need for a new building which would satisfy all needs of such institution. The new building was to represent not only an improving educational system of a young nation, but also to increase the working conditions of students – due to the lack of facilities at the old building lectures were read in two shifts.

The architecture of the building indicates the author’s preference to arrange certain modernist forms by historical principles. Symmetric facade of the building has two avant-corps which emphasise the central axis and the entrance, and the impression is further enhanced by a massive staircase. The monumental structure built on top of a small hill became the dominant landmark in a low-skyline suburb-type region.

Already several years later the school became too big for the building, as evidenced by the annex designed by Stasys Kudokas in 1941 found in archives. Stylistically consistent building was to house additional workshops, laboratories and rooms. Although coordination of the construction took until 1943 to finish, the annex was never built, and during the Soviet period the premises were extended by structures characteristic of educational architecture of that time.

Paulius Tautvydas Laurinaitis