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Credit Association of the City of Vilnius, Mojżesz Cholem (design, 1930), Izaak Smorgoński (superstructure, 1938), photo Małgorzata Dolistowska, 2012
Licencja: CC BY-SA 4.0, Źródło: Instytut Polonika, Warunki licencji
Fotografia przedstawiająca Vilnius City Credit Society
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ID: POL-001727-P

Vilnius City Credit Society

Vilnius | Lithuania
lit. Vilnius
ID: POL-001727-P

Vilnius City Credit Society

Vilnius | Lithuania
lit. Vilnius
Variants of the name:
Gmach Towarzystwa Kredytowego miasta Wilna

Municipal Credit Societies were financial institutions that provided mortgage credit against the collateral of municipal properties; funds for operations were raised through the issue of mortgage bonds. Before 1918. Societies operated only in the Russian partition – the oldest was the Credit Society of the City of Warsaw founded in 1870. The Municipal Credit Society of the City of Vilnius was founded in 1907, located then at 7 Wileńska St. In the interwar period the Society resumed its activities at a new address: 7 Portowa St. After the reactivation of the Society, Bronislaw Iżycki-Herman, a long-time Vilnius city councillor, a social activist coming from a distinguished Lithuanian Calvinist family, and president of the Evangelical-Reformed Consistory, became president of the Society. In 1927, Bronislaw Iżycki-Herman was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Rebirth of Poland for outstanding national and social activity.

In addition, the Society's Supervisory Board consisted of Michał Łukaszewicz, Jeremiasz Cholem, Bronisław Krzyżanowski and Józef Surowicz. In 1931, the institution moved to its own newly-built premises at 14 Jagiellońska Street

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History of construction and architecture of the building

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The design of the new headquarters of the Vilnius City Credit Society was approved by the city architect and obtained a building permit in March 1930. The author of the design was the architect Mojżesz Cholem. The author of the project was architect Mojżesz Cholem. The two-storey edifice, situated in the continuous frontage of Jagiellońska Street, was distinguished by its imposing façade on a high rusticated plinth, with a historicist decoration. The interior housed a representative three-legged staircase and a spacious operating theatre on each floor.

The current form of the Vilnius City Credit Society building was given in 1938. – at that time, the architect Isaac Smorgonski drew up a project to add an extra storey. From the original decoration, a blind portico with Doric pilasters running through two storeys, topped with a beam and a prominent cubic cornice remained. The preservation of the neoclassical portico in the modernised façade was probably due to the need to maintain the requirement of representativeness, but it was also a testimony to the persistence of historicist forms in the interwar architecture of Vilnius.

Historical address: 14 Jagiellońska Street

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Contemporary address: Jogailos g.14

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Time of origin:
1930, 1938
Creator:
Mojżesz Cholem , Izaak Smorgoński
Supplementary bibliography:

Dolistowska M., „Nice city” between tradition and avant-garde. Architecture of Vilnius in the interwar period. Outline of issues, [in:] Stan badań nad wielokulturowym dziedzictwem dawnej Rzeczypospolitej, vol. VIII, ed. W. Walczak, K. Łopatecki, Białystok 2017;

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Łoza S. (ed.), Czy wiesz, kto to jest?, Warsaw 1938;

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Morawski W., Słownik historyczny bankowości polskiej do 1939 roku, Warsaw 1998;

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Keywords:
Author:
dr hab. Małgorzata Dolistowska
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