Contemporary Art Center (CAC)

About

Located in the heart of Vilnius’ Old Town, the former Art Exhibition Palace, built during the Soviet era, now houses the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) – the largest institution of this kind in the Baltic States.

This modernist building, specially designed for art exhibitions, showcases the latest contemporary art works by both foreign and Lithuanian artists.

The composition and planning of the new art exhibition palace reflected the understanding of modernist architecture at that time: the fully glazed ground floor and the second-floor foyer, and the vertical windows of the exhibition halls gave the building a sense of lightness, softened the massiveness of the volumes, and reinforced the idea of transparency.

“At that time, the Art exhibition palace had a very unusual architecture. The wide windows and passages were shocking”, – this is how the building’s author spoke about this striking and easily recognizable object of Soviet Lithuanian architecture today.

In its form, the building repeats the bend of Vokiečių Street, thus breaking up its volume, giving lightness to it and letting in more light. One of the main and undeniable values of the palace is the right balance and expressiveness of the architectural language within the complex historical context of the Old Town. Due to this exceptional and sensitive relationship with the environment, the building is considered one of the best examples of modernist architecture.