History of construction

The history of the villa at 22 Portowa Street begins in 1936, when the Technical Department of the Vilnius City Board gave permission for the construction of a detached house at a distance of about 30 metres from the building line of the street, but because of the "rich relief and the resulting difficulties in the proper planning of the plot and the location of the building", it recommended that the Urban Planning Bureau be consulted on the project. The owner of the property and investor was a military doctor of the rank of colonel, Dr Antoni Kiakszto, commandant of the military hospital in Antokol, and his wife Stanisława Kiaksztowa, a lawyer. The project was commissioned to the well-known Vilnius architect Jan Borowski, highly regarded especially for his work in the field of conservation and preservation of historical monuments; the plans were ready in the spring of 1937 and construction began the same year. The author of the project initially became the supervisor of the works, but after a few months another Vilnius architect, Isaac Smorgonski, took over supervision and brought the project to completion. On 29 August 1938, the Technical Department issued a certificate of completion for the construction of a two-storey residential house with a volume of 1,385 m³, confirming at the same time that use of the villa had begun. It was inhabited by Dr Antoni Kiakszto with his wife and son Eugeniusz, as well as his wife's mother.

Dr. Antoni Kiakszto

Surgeon Dr Antoni Izydor Kiakszto (1884-1960) completed his medical studies in Moscow in 1909. He settled in Vilnius, where he ran a private practice and worked at the Military Hospital, working closely with the Faculty of Medicine of Stefan Batory University. In 1936, he was appointed hospital commander of the Vilnius Warfare Unit, a position he held until 1939. Dr Kiakszto took an active part in the social life of interwar Vilnius, being active in the medical community as a member of the Vilnius Medical Association and president of the PCK circle.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Dr Antoni Kiakszto became involved in the activities of the Committee to Aid Refugees to Poles in Vilnius. Numerous tenants, including Ludwik Sempoliński, Edward Dziewoński, Leopold Tyrmand, Leszek Zawisza, and Lithuanians: the actor Juoazas Siparis and the director of the Lithuanian State Theatre Juchnevičius, lived in the villa on Portowa Street. Dr Kiakszto was arrested by the NKVD in 1940 and deported deep into the USSR. His wife Stanislava Kiaksztowa died in Vilnius on 7 July 1941.

Dr Antoni Kiakszto survived the war and returned to Poland in 1946; he lived in Ożarów, near Warsaw, where he died in 1960.

The villa - contemporary history

After World War II, the fate of Dr. Kiakszto's villa at 22 Portowa Street is linked to the Venclov family. In 1945, the spacious flat on the ground floor of the house was allocated to Atanasov Venclov - a writer, poet and political activist, a long-time deputy to the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. His son is Tomas Venclova, writer and dissident, activist in the Lithuanian human rights movement, and professor emeritus at Yale University. The Venclov family lived in the villa until 1971.

Today the house is the seat of Vençlovu-namai muziejus .

Architecture

The villa is situated on a gentle hill, the slope of which is reinforced by a low fieldstone retaining wall, with stairs running past it leading to the entrance. The house varies in height, with a picturesque, asymmetrically dissected form, and has been skilfully set into the gentle slope of the site. The light form open to the greenery surrounding the house emphasises the entrance in the front elevation, preceded by a deep, open terrace covered with a flat roof.

The villa is one of the most interesting examples of modernist architecture of the interwar period in Vilnius and is one of the few realisations of the organic modernism trend in the city.

Historical address: 22 Portowa Street

Present-day address: Pamėnkalnio g. 34