In the inter-war period, the State Technical School in Vilnius was the only secondary vocational school in the north-eastern borderlands educating technicians of various specialisations. Its establishment was initiated by the Association of Polish Technicians operating in Vilnius since 1913, which carried out a wide educational campaign promoting modern technical knowledge. The model for the planned Vilnius school was to be the Hipolit Wawelberg and Stanislaw Rotwand Mechanical and Technical School in Warsaw - the oldest educational institution of its kind.

History

The project to establish a State Technical School in Vilnius was conceived as early as 1920, but its realisation was prevented by the outbreak of the Polish-Soviet war. It was revived after a few years: in 1922, during the stay in Vilnius of the Head of State, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, and Prime Minister Antoni Ponikowski, representatives of the Association submitted a memorandum on the opening of the school. Later that year, the curriculum prepared by the Association was approved by the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment, which issued a decree on the opening of the institution in the school year 1922/23. The school began its activities on 2 October 1922, initially in the evening system, using the rooms provided in the Zygmunt August Gymnasium in Mala Pohulanka Street. In subsequent years, teaching took place in an adapted and extended post-factory building at 63 Ponarska Street, belonging to the Spirits Monopoly.

The school developed dynamically, the number of pupils increased steadily, new courses were organised, but the limitations of the premises made it very difficult to function properly; in view of the need to return the premises occupied so far, a decision was taken to build its own building. In 1925, the Building Committee was established, and with government support and a subsidy received from the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment, the ambitious project could begin. The site for the building, located on Holendernia Street in Antokol, was donated free of charge by the Directorate of State Forests. The design was entrusted to Prof. Ludwik Sokołowski, a well-known and respected architect who had headed the architectural design studio at the reactivated Faculty of Fine Arts of Stefan Batory University since 1921.

The project, approved by the Ministry of Public Works in 1926, envisaged the construction of an extensive complex of buildings, consisting of a main building with a detached, separate wing housing physical, chemical and electrical laboratories and laboratories, as well as the nearby buildings of workshops, foundry, forge and boiler house. The building was designed on a regular ground plan, with an exposed main body with a raised central section and short side wings added at right angles. At the front, the wings were connected by a one-storey lower building closing the whole layout - two arcaded gateways led to the thus created quadrilateral courtyard.

The impressive complex required a lot of money. The investment was carried out gradually, starting with the left wing. The foundation stone was laid on 20 June 1926. - Six months later, on 9 January 1927, the building was formally consecrated. Construction continued in the following years: On 9 April 1928 the second part - the left half of the main body - was put into use; in1930 the workshop building was completed, to which the workshops and electrical engineering laboratory were moved from Ponarska Street. From that year onwards, the school - despite the project still not being fully realised - was already able to function in one place, in its own premises. However, the whole project was not realised until the outbreak of the Second World War. The second part of the main body and the right wing were not completed according to the original design documentation until 1965. The widening of the street meant that the front connector between the wings was not built.

In 1929 the school was named after Marshal Józef Piłsudski; in the same year it was visited by the President of the Republic, Ignacy Mościcki. On 19 March 1931, the day of the school's patron saint's name day, the new flag was consecrated by Romuald Jałbrzykowski, Archbishop of Vilnius, in the Cathedral Basilica.

In the years 1939-1944 the school operated in a new and changing political reality, with a partially replaced teaching staff and a teaching profile that was modified several times. The building of the school was not destroyed during the warfare, but the interiors were devastated after the passage of the front in 1944, when a Russian military hospital was located here.

The history of the school after the end of the Second World War is now a separate chapter. The historical building at Olandų g. 16 now houses one of the faculties of the Vilniaus technologijų ir dizajno kolegija.

The tradition of the Jozef Pilsudski Vilnius Technical School was continued in Gdansk, in a new educational institution established in 1947: Gdanskie Techniczne Zaklady Naukowych, where the director and most of the teaching staff were teachers of this school repatriated from Vilnius after 1945.

Curriculum and lecturers

The Vilnius State Technical School was opened with two faculties with a four-year course of study: mechanical-industrial and construction-road engineering. In the first years of dynamic development, the scope of activity was expanded - in 1930 there were already six four-year faculties: construction, road and water, railway, mechanical-industrial, land reclamation and surveying, and one three-year electrical faculty. After the reform of vocational education in 1932, the structure underwent a gradual reorganisation and from the school year 1937/38 there were four three-year industrial high schools within the school: construction, electrical, mechanical and surveying.

The curricula included both theoretical knowledge (general and vocational) and practical knowledge - acquired in classes in workshops and laboratories and in apprenticeships. Each stage of study was concluded with an oral examination, the submission of workshop, laboratory and graphics work, and the completion of compulsory apprenticeships. Upon graduation, the graduate received a certificate and a title in a specific specialisation.

The level of teaching at the Vilnius Technical School was very high. This was achieved thanks to the good organisation of the teaching process, the carefully selected group of lecturers, the rigorous requirements placed on the students and the excellent learning conditions, especially the exemplarily furnished and equipped school workshops.

The teachers of the Technical School were drawn from experienced practising engineers, initially mostly graduates of St Petersburg and Moscow polytechnic institutes and universities, and from the mid-1930s onwards -- Warsaw Polytechnic and Lviv Polytechnic and Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. Many of them had a rich professional practice and were active in the social life of interwar Vilnius, among them: architect and conservationist Jan Borowski - lecturer in the history of architecture at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Stefan Batory University, meritorious for the protection of the monuments of Vilnius and the Vilnius region, and architect and sculptor Otton Krasnopolski - lecturer and head of the Department of Construction at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Stefan Batory University in 1921-27.

Among the many distinguished graduates of the Vilnius State Technical School was the eminent architect Oskar Hansen, who graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in 1942.

Architecture

The building of the former Vilnius State Technical School forms a picturesque architectural ensemble, making excellent use of the advantages of the location and the peculiarities of the site. Situated on a gentle hill, overgrown with tall greenery, it creates a harmonious composition with the picturesque landscape of Antokol. The monumental body of the building, realised almost entirely according to Ludwik Sokołowski's design, referring directly to the Baroque palace premises, is in keeping with the trend of Polish traditionalism of the 1920s. In the interwar architecture of Vilnius this trend was permanently and strongly present - referring to the modern splendour and grand ducal tradition, it rebuilt the historical identity of the urban space.