Vladas Švipas

vladas švipas
pušalotas > bauhaus > kaunas > new york

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 chose the Bauhaus, the most avant-garde school of design of its time. The life and work of Vladas Švipas (1900-1965) reveal the making of a new type of modernist architect and his role in shaping a modern state. 

Švipas studied in Wassily Kandinsky's workshop from 1924 to 1926 and completed an internship at the Bauhaus Architecture Office in 1928. In interwar Kaunas, he developed ideas of rational planning in public service and through his theoretical work. During the Second World War, Švipas navigated between the Soviet and Nazi occupation regimes. At the end of the war, he further developed his architectural ideas in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany from 1945 to 1949, until he emigrated to the United States with the help of former Bauhaus director Walter Gropius and began a new life in New York. 

Švipas's legacy invites a broader view of the architectural profession as the work of a modern technical expert. His biography raises questions about the architect's role amid political change, forced migration, and within the diaspora. The exhibition highlights Švipas as a modernist architect while tracing the transnational history of professional migration in architecture, shaped by political regimes and historical ruptures. 

Produced by: Kultūros projektų asociacija DOCUMENTUM 
Curator: dr. Marija Drėmaitė (Vilnius University) 
Project manager: Lina Pranaitytė 
Architect and designer: Vika Pranaitytė (O-D-A . architecture studio) 
Photographer and researcher: Lukas Mykolaitis 
Models: Urtė Šimkutė 
Image Editing: Aust.studio 
Exhibition partner: LNMA National Gallery of Art 
Coordinator: Giedrius Gulbinas (NGA) 
Project partner: LAPAS books 
The exhibition is financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture 

Exhibits were loaned by:  Nacionalinis M. K. Čiurlionio dailės muziejus, Vilniaus universiteto biblioteka, Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių biblioteka, Lietuvos nacionalinė Martyno Mažvydo biblioteka, Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas, Lietuvos nacionalinis muziejus, Kauno apskrities Ąžuolyno viešoji biblioteka, Leidykla "Vaga", Alfonsas Švipas, Bernd Freese, Galerie Berinson Berlin