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enjoy the delightful views from this hilltop site, set in the heart of the city’s 500-year-old, UNESCO World Heritage-designated Old Town.
A year after our conversation, I am lucky enough to visit. And the complex is truly remarkable. Te ancient buildings fit in perfectly with their Old Town neighbours, though their white rendering is particularly dazzling and the windows are an obvious upgrade, glossy and clean, sitting snugly within their new, contoured metal frames. Trough the large, open gate in the perimeter wall, a glowing, landscaped garden, with an ancient linden tree at its centre, invites you into the site. Only here will you notice some intriguing additions: tucked neatly into a corner of the northern wing of the complex there is a mirror- clad lift and stair tower, its polished exterior reflecting the pristine surfaces of the restored buildings as well as the planting. Tree large circular skylights are embedded in the garden – from above, they seem like semi-opaque, seaglass discs, but they allow those swimming in the 25m spa pool below to look up at the sky. Tucked into the southern side, a restaurant terrace has been excavated in the garden, in
Seilern has done a masterful job of stripping out the later, ungainly 20th century accretions to reveal the historic forms and textures
order to bring daylight into a contemporary dining interior carved out of the original medieval crypt. Te roof of the restaurant, extending forward at garden height, is a shimmering expanse of mirror-polished steel, reflecting sky and cloudscapes and the buildings behind and beyond it. Te project still speaks of Vilnius’s complicated past – entailing multiple occupations by invading imperial forces, from Russian aristocrats through Napoleon’s French army, then the Nazis and finally the Soviet Union, who left in 1991. Seilern has done a masterful job of stripping out the later, ungainly 20th century accretions to reveal the historic forms and textures, while
her contemporary interventions bring the facilities bang up to 21st century standards. To get here has been an epic project, spanning 13 years, in which she even took on – and changed – ancient planning laws. While Seilern’s proposed dialogue between old and new is not an unusual approach in conservation, it was in Lithuania in 2008. At that time, conservation tended towards pastiche. Tere were strict rules insisting on clay tiled roofs – though they were allowed to be liberally pimpled with Velux windows. Seilern wanted to reinstate the original large, simple roof volumes, while allowing substantial daylight into the top floors through strategic glazed panels, hidden behind slatted screens of bronze-anodized aluminium. Tese ensure that the glass is almost invisible from the outside (except after dark, when the stripes of interior lighting gleam in a rather magical way). From the inside, the wonderful spaces Seilern has conjured for offices and residential in the timber-beamed attic levels are regularly animated by shards of sunlight. To tackle the planners’ resistance, she deployed Article 21 of UNESCO’s Vienna Memorandum, which reads: ‘One historical view should not supplant others as history must remain readable while continuity of culture through quality interventions is the ultimate goal.’ Says Seilern: ‘Trough this, we were able to argue that what we were doing wasn’t radical but right – well, it was radical, but it was right.’ Working closely with conservation architects, the scheme preserves and enhances the original spaces and materials while giving each facility a unique and delightful character. Navigation around the underground spa is almost entirely along richly textured, brick- lined gothic vaulted tunnels, their walls protected by softly undulating oak panels behind which services and lighting are hidden. Tis offers a tactile surface for the hands, while also protecting the building’s ancient fabric. Tere is something timeless and eternal about these spaces, but also luxurious. Perhaps the fact that her clients were willing to authorise the same attention to detail in the public areas and offices as they wanted in their homes – three apartments tucked invisibly into various parts of the complex, along with others that are rented out – is what makes the whole experience just that bit more uplifting, thoughtful, unified by the same aesthetic ambition and refinement. Tis includes the uplifting white walls and huge ceiling of the chapel, a scheme of stark simplicity that celebrates all the height, the curves, the grandeur of the original while turning it into an outstanding and distinctive performance space. Client and architect clearly know they have done something special here. But perhaps the biggest compliment to Seilern’s ingenuity and creativity – and her client’s faith in it – is the fact that aluminium roofs are now becoming de rigueur in Vlinius. -
Tis project has been awarded the Grand Prix at the National architecture Awards, organised by the Lithuanian Ministry of Environment
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