As the capital of a region focused primarily on agricultural production, Vilnius suffered from an acute shortage of food storage and processing facilities. The demand for the urgent construction of a city cold store had been made by the Vilnius Chamber of Agriculture and the Department of Agricultural Economics of Stefan Batory University since the early 1930s. The possibility of storing perishable agricultural commodities for a longer period of time would not only stabilise the price market, but, above all, enable farmers to rationalise and organise their production accordingly, and would also be an impulse for the development of the local processing industry.

The economic crisis, organisational and financial difficulties prevented the realisation of these demands for many years. It was not until 1936 that such an opportunity arose, thanks to a loan granted to the city by the State Agricultural Bank, a shareholder in the company "Refrigeration and Port Warehouses in Gdynia". The construction in Vilnius was the fourth investment of this type in Poland - after the cold store in Gdynia, built first, and the cold stores in Warsaw and Lodz.

History of the cold store construction

The decision to build a cold store in Vilnius was taken on November 20, 1937, at a meeting of the Economic Committee of the Vilnius Chamber of Agriculture under the direction of Professor W. Staniewicz. The investment was carried out by the company "Chlodnia i Składy Portowe w Gdyni", which had carried out all previous projects of this type in Poland. The Vilnius cold store was to be of a commodity and processing nature - to be used for storing perishable products in times of increased supply and then transferring them for processing.

The enterprise was owned by a company in which the main shareholder, in addition to the State Agricultural Bank, was the Vilnius City Board, which contributed a square, sewage and water supply facilities and electricity. A corner square at the junction of Kievska (now Kauno g.) and Pilsudski (now Algirdo g.) Streets was chosen as the optimal location for the investment.

On 21 March 1938, a meeting of the Building Committee was held, which approved the draft design of the cold store and set a target completion date of spring 1939. Shortly afterwards, the construction contract was signed between the Vilnius local government and the main contractor, the company "Chlodnie i składy portowe w Gdyni". The construction of the complex, consisting of a cold storage building and an administrative building, was carried out between 1938 and 1939. The authors of the project were Warsaw designers: arch. Mieczysław Pierzchalski, a 1934 graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, and engineer Stanisław Rostkowski, co-author of the cold storage building in Warsaw. The construction work was carried out by Włodzimierz B. Strzemiński, also from Warsaw.

In 1939, the city authorities envisaged the construction of a large market hall for wholesale trade in fruit, vegetables and dairy products on the Bosaczek market adjacent to the cold store - located so that, together with the cold store, it would form a common industrial and commercial complex.

Architecture of the complex

The complex of buildings of the Vilnius City Cold Store, in addition to its undoubted functional values, is characterised by high architectural qualities. The main building and the administration house form a coherent ensemble with an economical form consisting of geometric, contrasting blocks. A characteristic feature is the material - grey cement brick, typical of the architecture of the "Warsaw school" of inter-war modernism, was used in the construction.

The building of the cold store, with a constructivist reinforced concrete structure externalized by prominent lisens, was designed from massive blocks, with an uplifted central part with clearly marked vertical divisions contrasted with horizontal bands of windows of lower side parts. The cold store was equipped with a loading ramp and a railway siding; the size of the rooms and the refrigeration system allowed for the storage of up to 150 10-tonne wagons at a time.

The four-storey administration building, located in the corner section of the property, is characterised by a modernist block-like form, with a separate staircase block, emphasised by high vertical glazing of the lightwell. The differentiation of the vertical elements with horizontal bands of windows was further enhanced by the use of dark brown clinker cladding, contrasting in texture and colour with the grey background of the cement brick.

The complex of cold stores in Kijowska Street, the construction of which was completed just before the outbreak of the Second World War, became one of the symbols of Vilnius transforming into a modern city and at the same time a place with great development potential - in the vicinity of the cold stores, in the Bosachka market, there were plans to build a modern market hall for wholesale trade in vegetables and fruit.

Historical address: Kijowska Street

Current address: Kauno g.13