The Genius loci, public spaces and transformations of Vilnius' urban milieu

ENThere is hardly any need to argue that public spaces are those predominantly urban areas where the most essential and epochal social changes become manifest in their most visible and tangible forms. Like in most other Eastern and Central European countries and societies making up the vast post-Soviet area, public urban spaces in Lithuania in general, and its capital city Vilnius in particular, underwent significant spatial and symbolic transformations during the last quarter of a century since the spectacular break from the Soviet Union. And yet, despite the fact that two and a half decades have passed since the end of the infamous Soviet era, a large number of public spaces in Vilnius to this very day remain a kind of 'black hole' in the capital's urban topography, making its present urban culture highly questionable. [From the publication]