Architecture of Optimism: The Kaunas Phenomenon 1918–1940

read sample – lithuanian edition

ode to interwar period Kaunas

After Kaunas suddenly became Lithuania’s provisional capital in 1919, the city’s subsequent transformation was nothing short of miraculous. Kaunas’ identity changed radically: in less than twenty years, its residents transformed the city into a modern, elegant and European capital. Architecture played a particularly important role in that transformation. Architecture of Optimism is more than just the story of one city and its architecture.

It is about the perpetual birth and death of hope, about creative endeavour and inspiring productive optimism, about the migration of ideas and forms, about the local and the global, about art and freedom, war and oppression. It is about changing forms and ideas and their relationship with the present day. 

This book is part of an exhibition entitled „The Architecture of Optimism: The Kaunas Phenomenon, 1918-1940“ held to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the restoration of Lithuanian independence.

CREDITS

edited by: Marija Drėmaitė
texts by: Marija Drėmaitė, Vilma Akmenytė-Ruzgienė, Norbertas Černiauskas, Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, Paulius Tautvydas Laurinaitis, Viltė Migonytė-Petrulienė, Vaidas Petrulis
photographs by: Gintaras Česonis, Norbert Tukaj and others
design: Linas Gliaudelis, Jurga Dovydėnaitė
translated from Lithuanian by: Darius Sužiedėlis
language editor: Jeremy Hill

ISBN 978-609-8198-08-9

292 pages, 190 x 220 x 20 mm
soft cover, illustrated

published by LAPAS books, May 2018

NEW EDITION February, 2025

PUBLISHED IN COLLABORATION WITH