Plans to open a big medical institution in Kaunas can be found as early as 1919, when “the Cabinet of Ministers had decided to immediately prepare a plan for the hospital”. However the city had to survive without a sufficient hospital for a long time (the only more modern clinic was the Eye-Ear Clinic in Vytautas pr., built in 1929 by the architect V. Landsbergis-Žemkalnis). It was decided to build the Clinics in 1936. The public tender for the architectural project for Clinics received 5 applicants, from which 2 were rejected. French architect Urbain Cassan won the tender (with an assistant Ellie Ouchanoff), who already had experience in designing hospitals. Karolis Reison finised second, while F. Bielinskis ended third.
The hospital complex built in 1937-1939 contains five buildings: the central housing, administration and stomatology building (later transformed in to polyclinic), housings for infection related diseases clinic, nerves and psychological diseases clinic and building for pathological anatomy (architect F. Bielinskis), also tunnels and few outbuilding facilities. It was by far the biggest object for medical purposes in Lithuania. In those days media it was praised that the hospital would be the biggest and the most modern not only in Lithuania but also in the whole Baltics region, while for the construction “a train filled with pebbles would length 42 km” was used. The Clinics belonged to Vytautas Magnus University’s Faculty of Medicine, thus the object was applied for learning – auditoriums, dummy rooms (in the project order called as museums), library rooms, nurse dormitories, etc. During the Soviet times and already in independent Lithuania the complex was significantly expanded.
Medicine institutions used in European context, as the infamous Paim sanatory in Finland, had become a symbol of functionalism. Simple rectangular lines, black and white colors’ esthetics were related to sterility and hygiene. We would not find that in Kaunas. The composition of volume (symmetry, rhizolithes, cornice pull), decoration materials (the facades were decorated with granitic plaster) – all this can be related to modernized historicism rather than modernism. However it is possible to talk about object’s modernity from its engineering equipment. Good example – exceptionally advanced stomatology hall with double floors to connect the engineering networks to stomatology chairs. The 1km long complex of tunnels can also be called modern, which also was related to anti-air and anti-chemical security functions.
Vaidas Petrulis