Chambers of Industry and Commerce were regional institutions of economic self-government as a permanent representation of industry and commerce of a given area. The scope of the Chambers' activities included, among other things, cooperation in the drafting of laws and regulations, support for business ventures, monitoring and animating economic life, training and expert activities. By virtue of a decree of the Minister of Industry and Trade of 30 November 1927, ten Chambers were established on the territory of the Republic of Poland, with seats in Warsaw, Łódź, Sosnowiec, Lublin, Lwów, Kraków, Poznań, Bydgoszcz, Grudziądz and Vilnius.

The Vilnius Chamber covered the eastern provinces of Vilnius, Novgorod, Polesie and Bialystok. The statute of the Vilnius Chamber of Commerce and Industry was approved in 1928; its activities began the following year in premises at 3 Trocka St. Roman Ruciński – a Vilnius entrepreneur and trader, president of the Association of Christian Merchants and Industrialists, and author of popular programmes on the Vilnius radio devoted to the economy of the north-eastern Borderlands, became president.

History of construction

In 1930, the Vilnius Chamber of Commerce and Industry purchased a corner site at the junction of Mickiewicz and Styczniowa Streets, with the intention of building its own headquarters. The project was selected in 1931, through an open nationwide architectural competition, which resulted in 119 entries. The jury of the competition, composed of Professor Ferdynand Ruszczyc, architects: Professor Juliusz Kłos, Professor Ludwik Sokołowski, Stefan Narębski, Otton Krasnopolski, Stefan Siła-Nowicki and the President of the Chamber, Roman Ruciński, awarded the first prize to the project whose author was the architect Zygmunt Tarasin.

Construction work began in mid-1931; the foundation stone laying ceremony took place on 2 August. The construction work was entrusted to local enterprises selected by means of a tender, – the construction work was carried out by the combined companies of Smorgoński, Giedroyc and Possek, while the installation work was carried out by – „Dom Handlowo-Przemysłowy Ing. W. Malinowski sp. z o.o.” The construction and finishing of the magnificent edifice lasted a year and a half; in December 1932, the Chamber began its activities in its new premises at Mickiewicza Street. In addition to the Chamber's offices and several staff flats, the spacious building also housed the Grain and Commodity Exchange, a branch of the Municipal Savings Bank and smaller business associations. In 1935, an agreement was signed with the Vilnius Tourist Propaganda Association, which occupied part of the left wing. The largest hall was used for the Regional Exhibition presenting the folk industry products of the Vilnius region. In 1937-1938 the walls of the representative hall of the House were decorated with frescoes by Jozef Horyd. Three allegorical figural compositions represented the branches of industry and economy most characteristic of the area covered by the Chamber; the coats of arms of the constituent provinces were depicted on the ceiling plafonds. A Warsaw art critic wrote appreciatively about the polychrome in the Chamber of Industry and Commerce: „the talented Vilnius painter happily solved the decoration of the representative hall, skilfully dividing the planes with allegorical compositions, with a difficult use of motifs and emblems of trade and industry”.

After World War II, the building housed the Vilnius City Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania. Today, the former Chamber of Commerce and Industry building is the seat of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania.

Architecture

The three-storey imposing edifice of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry was built of three cuboidal volumes juxtaposed at right angles to each other. The main body, situated in the building line of Mickiewicza Street, is accentuated by a corner three-bay arcade and rectangular two-storey windows illuminating the representative hall inside. The arcades and the rhythm of narrow, high windows monumentalise the body of the building, giving it a dignified, solemn form. The backdrop to this part are the side elevations – devoid of detail apart from the delicate banded rustication of the plinth marked in the plaster.

The cubic masses, the composition of the elevations and the structural solutions applied, allow the building of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry to be included in the group of early modernist buildings of interwar Vilnius, in which the simplicity of the modern form was softened by motifs of historical provenance.

Historical address: 32 Mickiewicza Street

Modern address: Gedimino Prospektas 36

Today's address: Gedimino Prospektas 36