Building history

The construction of the multi-family house at 20 Portowa Street began in mid-1937. The author of the project was Vilnius architect Jan Borowski, the designer of the villa of Dr. Antoni Kiakszto, whose construction was underway at the same time on the neighbouring property at 22 Portowa Street. Initially, the construction work was managed by the author of the project, but after a short time he was replaced by architect Izaak Smorgoński. During construction, the investors – Anna Hansenowa and Stanisław Baginski – applied for permission to increase the volume of the building by 35% by adding one storey. The house was designed as a multi-family house with six flats. A replacement design incorporating this request was approved by the Technical Department of the City Board in January 1938; in November of that year, construction was completed and the building was handed over for use.

Owners

Anna Hansenowa, née Zetilov, of Russian origin, second wife of Dr Herman Hansen, came to Vilnius with her husband and children in 1924. Dr Herman Karol Hansen, son of the Norwegian millionaire Herman „Appelsin” Hansen, completed his medical studies in Kazan and worked as a doctor in Russia and Finland. He opened a private medical practice in Vilnius and died in 1928. Anna and Herman Hansen had a daughter and four sons, Arvid, Erika, Edgar, Runar, Oskar. Oskar Hansen (1922-2005), a prominent Polish architect, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, graduated from the King Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Vilnius and then from the Mechanical Faculty at the Józef Piłsudski State Technical School (in 1942).

Lawyer Stanislaw Bagiński (1881-after 1941) was an important figure in the social and political life of interwar Vilnius. A lawyer and PPS activist, he was a member of the Vilnius Sejm on behalf of the party and a member of the Legislative Sejm. He was active in professional associations, and was a member, and in the 1930s president, of the Bar Council. In September 1939, he became Commander of the Civic Guard in Vilnius; arrested by the NKVD in September 1939, deported deep into the USSR, he died in unexplained circumstances.

Architecture

The multi-family house on Portowa Street was situated – due to the terrain – as set back from the building line of the street and preceded by a double, low fieldstone retaining wall. An analogous material was used to clad the plinth and the plane around the entrance door. The three-storey building consists of two interpenetrating, cuboidal volumes whose horizontal lines are emphasised by the crowning cornices and the corner balcony.

The house of Anna Hansenova and Stanislaw Baginski forms, together with the neighbouring villa of Dr. Antoni Kiakszto, a homogeneous architectural ensemble, a good example of the modernist trend in Vilnius residential architecture.

Historical address: 20 Portowa Street

Contemporary address: Pamėnkalnio g. 32