Residential House in Kaunas | Gintautas Natkevičius

The structure of plots in this area was formed during the interwar period of independent Lithuania. During that period the city of Kaunas developed as the temporary capital of Lithuania, so the main development and construction of large buildings, new houses and reconstructions took place in the city center, in the valley of the Nemunas River. Therefore, during the independence period, the continuity of the city moved to the nearest district, located on the slopes of the river, where attempts were made to form a solid area of private plots and houses.

The new district had a relatively tidy layout, one end of it bordered a park with oak trees, from which small streets were projected like the rays of a rainbow. Thus, this plot is on one of those small streets where all urban planning and development were programmed during the interwar period.

The specificity of the plot, and at the same time its difficulty and interest, is that the plot is very long and of peculiar proportions - its shape is like two connected squares. The plot is narrow, there are neighboring buildings on both sides of the plot. The short side of the plot is quite narrow, automatically complicating and shaping the task of building a future residential house.

To preserve a sense of privacy, windows were avoided facing the adjacent external plots, so automatically the possibility of windows remained only towards the street and the completely empty part of the plot on the opposite side. Considering that the access to the plot is from the street, where a garage is planned, there was essentially only one orientation left for designing the windows.

During the interwar period, Kaunas progressed as the temporary capital, characterized by rounded corners, round walls, round windows and angled windows as elements of architecture. The interwar center of Kaunas, which is currently included in the UNESCO heritage site precisely because of Kaunas' modernist architecture, is renowned for this. Since these are interwar plots, the idea arose to build a structure with a certain architectural allusion to the interwar architecture - on this shaped plot, two elongated bricks were placed side by side and slightly pushed forward, with the ends of the walls rounded.

On the ground floor, the problem of the garage and utility buildings was solved, while the main shared space of the first floor - the living room, dining room, and kitchen—was designed to overlook the depth of the plot. On the second floor of the house, the master bedroom, wardrobe and bathroom were designed with the children's area on the opposite side. This solution allowed creating two things: a mysterious, interesting architecture, which exploits and hides the plot's negative features but at the same time reveals its good features, good orientations. Since interwar architecture was characterized by large spaces, a space was created in the living room area spanning two floors, which can be viewed by climbing stairs from the balcony - thus, the living room has its own internal architecture, internal emotions.

The finish of the building consists of individually manufactured concrete bricks, the color and dimensions of which are completely unique. This is a very rough, massive architectural residential house, which is slightly softened on the facades by the shape and texture created by the concrete bricks and the huge glass areas.

Lead architects: T. Jokubauskas, A. Rimšelis, G. Natkevičius
Project managers: K. Lodaitė, M. Jucius, T. Jūras
Sructural engineer: A. Filipovas, M. Kasiulevičius