The Development of the Buildings of the Leipalingis Manor: The Data of Exploratory Architectural Research and Conservation

Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis

Authors

  • Evaldas Purlys Projektavimo ir restauravimo institutas, Vilnius, Lithuania

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37522/aaav.97.2020.43

Keywords:

Leipalingis manor (Druskininkai district), architecture, exploratory architectural research, heritage, conservation

Abstract

The article analyses the architectural development of three buildings – a manor, an orangery and a grain storage – of the Leipalingis (Druskininkai district) manor ensemble, built at a different time, which was well revealed during field research and restoration works conducted in 2010–2014 and 2019–2020. They compensated for the lack of historical data on this ensemble. Comparing the results of the architectural research with photographs held at the Leipalingis Museum provided a great deal of new information about the change of the architecture and décor elements of the manor buildings. The author of the article conducted the exploratory architectural research himself, thus many of his insights are a result of analysing the buildings in situ.

The manor ensemble suffered considerable damage in the years of World War II, and the remaining buildings were drastically restructured in the Soviet period. After the performed reconstructions, the buildings of the classicist-style manor, the neoclassicist grain storage and the orangery built in the early 20th century were transformed into a single architectural ensemble. The one-storey orangery connected the two-storey buildings of the manor and the storage. For a long time, it confused researchers in the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st century. After this reconstruction, the grain storage was perceived as a wing of the manor, due to its strongly enlarged windows untypical of an auxiliary building and its unique architecture reminiscent of a Greek temple. It was not until the first decades of the 21st century that the architectural research and restoration works supplemented the historical data and allowed to understand the actual function of the surviving buildings and the essence of their planning structure. However, this restoration did not allow fully exposing all the characteristic elements of the architecture and construction of the buildings in situ, as they became redundant while adapting the buildings for the new needs. Due to that reason, this publication is a written record of the discovered but unrestored and unreconstructed elements, which is important in understanding the relation of authentic details and the new additions that appeared during the reconstruction of the surviving buildings of the former Leipalingis Manor.

Published

05/11/2020

How to Cite

Purlys, E. (2020). The Development of the Buildings of the Leipalingis Manor: The Data of Exploratory Architectural Research and Conservation: Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis. Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis, (97), 379–430. https://doi.org/10.37522/aaav.97.2020.43