Tuskulėnai Manor House

Former Manor Palace and Park (Fragments of the Former Manor Homestead of Tuskulėnai)

Just like the former Courthouse palace on Gedimino Avenue, nowadays most people associate Tuskulėnai Manor Palace with the USSR security agencies, which took control of it from 1944, and the members of the Lithuanian resistance movement, who became their victims. Roughly a thousand of them is buried in this area. The history of the Manor took a different and much lighter path prior to World War II and the Palace itself is a piece of the creative work done by one of the most prominent Lithuanian architects of the 19^th century. In 1825 it was designed for the Governor General of Vilnius by Karolis Podčašinskis, a professor at Vilnius University. Other legacy of the architect includes Vilnius Evangelical Reformed Church and the current interior of the Great Hall of Vilnius University. The professor also supervised reconstruction of a number of major buildings in the capital.

The compact, classicistic residence consists of the central two-floor space and the single-floor side parts with mezzanines on top of them on each side of it. The layout of the Palace is typical to villas of the Palladian style, i.e., an early version of Classicism, and it is directly based on the designs developed by Andrea Palladio, one of the most prominent architects of the Renaissance Era, who had a huge impact on the ideas and forms of the subsequently evolved style. We see the imitation of a portico in the central part on both sides of the façade: the four pilasters supporting the entablature of proportionate shapes and the triangular pediment. The side of the building facing the river is much more expressive: the entrance is surrounded by the terrace in addition to the balcony built on the first floor. The finishing of the pediment tympanum and the planes of the attics on the side parts includes the relief décor characteristic of a floral motif and the three restored sculptures on top of the pediment depicting the Roman goddesses. Even though the remaining interior décor is very scarce here, we can still see painted décor elements on the ceilings and the walls attributed to Classicism. Both the exterior of the building and the remaining interior elements were restored in 2005-2008.

Detail