“For centuries Lithuania was known as a land of endless lush forests, interrupted only by rivers. As such the traditional architecture in Lithuania is wooden. In most smaller towns almost every building that is construtced before 20th century is built of wood. Wooden churches (both Catholic and Orthodox) are common in villages, there are even wooden mosques and synagogues. Some of the wooden buildings are very elaborate and with intricate details.
In the downtowns of the main cities, however, the brick started to displace the wood as early as in the 14th century. Romanesque architecture was the first international style to reach Lithuania but few examples of it survive. Some of the most famous architectural gems date to gothic period (such as the Saint Anne’s church in Vilnius) and subsequent Rennaisance. This period was followed by the Baroque that is the best represented in the church architecture of Vilnius. Only a few cities have brick pre-19th century districts however: Vilnius, Kaunas and Kėdainiai are the best known examples.
In late 18th century the Neo-Classical architecture came to Lithuania. In mid 19th century it was displaced by historicism that copied various earlier styles and sometimes a combination of thereof. This period gave many large buildings to the cities (apartments and public buildings) while many smaller towns received their neo-gothic church spires that now dominate the Lithuanian landscape (Roman Catholic faith became free to practice and expand in the Russian-controlled Lithuania only after the 1904).
After the World War 1 Kaunas became the temporary capital of Lithuania therefore it expanded rapidly and received many fine art deco buildings, most famous being the Church of Christ Ressurection on the Žaliakalnis hill. However the main period of urbanizations came under the Soviet occupation (in 1939 70% of Lithuanian people lived in villages; in 1989 70% of Lithuanian people lived in cities). Initially this meant construction of buildings in a style known as Soviet historicism, but as early as 1954 all “unnecessary architectural details” were cancelled and every new building had to be built in a blant functionalism style, making all the new districts that surrounded every city very faceless and hard to distinguish from any other city in the Soviet Union (in a popular Russian comedy “After bath” a drunk man goes to Saint Petersburg instead of Moscow and does not realize this because of similar district names, street names and buildings). In the villages many old wooden houses were replaced by similar looking prefab “Alytus homes”. Shops, schools and hospitals also used to be built by similar designs all across the Union.” (1)
(1)- http://www.truelithuania.com/topics/culture-of-lithuania
Gianni Francesco De Giuseppe 