vladas švipas : pušalotas > bauhaus > kaunas > new york

The display tracks the path of Lithuanian Bauhaus alumnus from interwar Kaunas to a German Displaced Persons camp, and into New York, where he had to adapt to an émigré fate. About The exhibition places Švipas’s architecture within a broader historical and cultural context of a modern state construction. The newly independent Lithuanian state (1918-1940), emerging from wars and the collapse of empires, was in great need of modern professionals. State scholarships encouraged young people to study in Western Europe, yet only one Lithuanian student-scholarship recipient chose the Bauhaus, the most avant-garde school of design of its time. The life and work of Vladas Švipas reveal the making of a new type of modernist architect and his role in shaping a modern state. Architecture