In soviet Lithuania standard single-family housing projects have been actively developed and constantly improved. It was possible to identify about 40 different standard housing projects in Lithuania’s rural areas in the early eighties. However, it was not an easy task for a family to build their own house. The construction was hampered by the lack of permanent materials and priority queues, according to which plots were distributed. Also one must take notice that the construction of single-family homes was totally prohibited in major cities. Before setting in the prohibition in the 60s, one could recognize standard housing exploiting traditional materials – brick, wood, as well as adapting architectural features of interwar housing. Meanwhile, the rural areas started to experiment with the design of industrially prefabricated homes. These attributes of, so far poorly, investigated typology are one of the components forming a standard single- family house in modern day Lithuania. The objective of the paper is to define the peculiarities of standard single-family housing development in the soviet era, with a focus on socio-political factors which determined the direction and attributes of a typical design.

Article in: Lithuanian

Article published: 2016-04-28