Reconstruction of The National Gallery of Art

About object:

After a 13 years long reconstruction one of a major national cultural institutions – the National Gallery of Art (formerly a Museum of Revolution created by the authors G. Baravykas, V. Vielius) – has opened it’s doors for visitors at a commemoration of a millennium of the name of Lithuania.
The original exterior of the old museum’s building considered one of the best examples of Soviet modernism in Lithuania has remained unchanged after the reconstruction – only the decoration of a light stone facade has been changed. However, the internal structure has been transformed basically: a new sequence of spaces consistently passing each other is user-friendly. Conference rooms, a café, a reading-room have expanded the program of the Gallery by various events and turned it into an actively used public cultural centre.
A huge temporary exhibition hall is set out in a pavilion halfway dug into the ground and inserted between a busy Kalvarijų Street and the old Museum. A fulgent metal roof of the hall connects the old building and the new signs of the Gallery – the two black narrow volumes leaning as if the screens of portable computers towards the river and the Kalvarijų street. They represent this progressive institution of culture especially modernly and excellently, emphasize by contrast the monumental character of the old building and enhance its visual importance in the panorama of the new city centre.

J. Reklaite