Prosecutor General’s Office. Category: administrative
Design: 2004–2006
Construction: 2007–2008
Address: Rinktinės g. 5A, Vilnius
Architect: Kęstutis Lupeikis

Kęstutis Lupeikis (born 1962) is an architect, painter and has a humanities doctorate. He is a significant figure and an original creator. Lupeikis participates in art exhibitions and in architectural competitions. His paintings and academic work emphasise the importance of minimalism, hyper-surface geometry, and elemental forms. He has been awarded the highest grant the state can give for his accomplishments in the fine arts and architecture.

When designing the Prosecutor General’s Office, Lupeikis sought to create an impressive and solid space to convey a sense of order, stability, strength and gravity by using minimalist expression. The ascetic black cubes of the façade are filled with rows of leaning windows, which instil energy and dynamism into the monumental and static character of the building. According to the architect, the volume of polished granite ‘becomes a pause, a black dot that embodies the search for silence in the noise of the city’. The building with ten storeys above ground is cleaved by an atrium, with suspended conference and meeting rooms. The glassed-in lower ground floor is suffused with daylight; it is low and recessed to some extent – the intention here is to create for the visitor a psychological boundary between the interior and the exterior. The appearance of such an ‘egocentric’ building among apartment blocks caused considerable controversy and public debate about contemporary architecture.

klapklap@gmail.com