Viewed chronologically, the first entity that deserves mention is one dedicated to fashion design, the Vilnius House of Clothing Design, opened in the Lithuanian capital in 1954. The new institution created clothing and footwear designs meant for mass production as well as unique custom designs aimed at foreign shows and, according to long-time Artistic Director Dalia Jurginienė, the era's elite, both in Lithuania and throughout the Soviet Union:

 

 

The Vilnius House of Clothing Design began publishing a magazine called Banga (Wave) in 1962, staffing its editorial office with graphic artists such as Bronius Leonavičius, Rimantas Dichavičius, and Arūnas Tarabilda and the painter Vincas Kisarauskas. The editorial board also included two renowned cultural figures from the inter-war period, Juozas Keliuotis and Vincas Uždavinys.

 

Most Soviet design institutions were given long titles that were hard to remember, so they often were known by various different abbreviations. The furniture design agency in Vilnius, in operation since 1957, was known by everyone as the PKB (an abbreviation of its first official name, the Projektavimo konstravimo biuras, or Architectural Construction Bureau, renamed in 1959 as the People's Economic Council Experimental Construction Bureau). The PKB employed Lithuanian architects, engineers and designers to create new furniture and furniture sets for mass production. Pieces created by Lithuanian designers were used to furnish various public buildings in Lithuania and around the USSR, from the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet (or parliament), incorporating office furniture designed by Cukermanas; the Vilnius Sports Hall (designer: Tadas Baginskas), and the Lithuanian Opera and Ballet Theatre (designer: Eugenijus Algimantas Gūzas), to the most famous restaurants of Vilnius and Moscow, including the Dainava Restaurant in Vilnius, with designs by Stapulionis and Cukermanas, considered the first night club opened in the post-war Soviet Union, and cafés such as the one located in the Yunost Hotel in Moscow, furnished with designs by Vytautas Beiga in 1960 and 1961. Lithuanian creations even reached hotels in Africa (furniture for the Hotel Camayenne in Guinea, in 1962, and the Cosmos Hotel in the Congo, 1966–1967, designs by Beiga) and the schools in Yemen, with furnishings designed by Baginskas.

 

In 1964, a specialized graphic design institution opened in Vilnius, called the Experimental Package Design Bureau, whose mission was to fulfill graphic design commissions from idea generation all the way through actual product realization. The Bureau created labels, packaging, branding and custom-designed projects, and designed and printed various advertising publications and posters. The name of the institution changed several times, so designers and artists working at the experimental facility on Paribio Street referred to it simply as "Tara" (Package). Tens of young, so-called artists-constructors found employment here, many of them graduates of graphic arts programs, but some also with academic backgrounds in set design, frescos and mosaics, ceramics, and textiles.

 

A branch of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute for Technical Aesthetics (abbreviated to VTEMTI in Lithuanian) opened in 1966 in Vilnius, with its main mission being the assembly of electronics and precision tools and the design of industrial facility interiors and exteriors. The Institute also contributed to the creation and dissemination of design theory by holding various conferences and publishing notices and methodological guidelines for the practical adaptation of various innovations and regulations. In this context, the designer Algimantas Bielskis deserves special mention. Bielskis was the first certified industrial design specialist in Lithuania, graduating from Leningrad's Vera Mukhina Institute of Industrial Art in 1964, and the author of a theory for a system of cybernetic symbols.

 

At the initiative of the Technical Aesthetics Institute, specialized design exhibitions began being held in Vilnius in the 1960s. In truth, however, projects by Lithuanian designers were more often displayed in Soviet or Baltic republic pavilions, or stands showcasing Soviet Lithuania, at so-called "accomplishment exhibitions" held abroad. However, even as we begin our review of the various initiatives to establish design institutions in the late 1950s and 1960s, and before we are even able to delve deeper into their activities, we must turn to a discussion about the sad circumstances of their closure. The archives of all of the aforementioned design agencies and the Technical Aesthetics Institute, including all of the designs and prototypes stored for decades in their study rooms and all material kept in specialized libraries, disappeared without a trace around 1990. The only likely exception was the archive of the Vilnius Academy of Arts' Design Department, assembled over the years by Professor Daukantas and his diligent staff, and largely still intact today.

 

It must be acknowledged, then, that our knowledge about Lithuanian design history is very fragmented. Today, we can only discuss individual fields or periods that were the subject of more extensive research, or that benefitted from efforts to "reconstruct" certain episodes in design history, reviving and newly interpreting facts based on publications from the press of the day, or perhaps using the memoirs and stories of artists and witnesses and isolated instances of individually preserved archival documents or artifacts.

 

Speaking of international creative impulses, it's worth recalling an American exhibition held in Moscow in 1959 that provided an important impetus to the development of Soviet design and which is known in design and political history as the renowned "Kitchen Debate". One day prior to the official closing of the exhibition, the show was visited by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and then US Vice President Richard Nixon, who began a discussion thus:

 

 

It's now said that this was a lively, spontaneous discussion over controversial Cold War subjects, though journalists and photographers had already been advised the day before that they would need to "make a stop in the kitchen and talk about Cold War strategies." The conversation did in fact take place in an almost "space age" American kitchen, "armed" with the latest General Electric technology and set up in a typical, actual-size six-room American house.

 

It was there that Nixon's question, "Would it not be better to compete in the relative merits of washing machines than in the strength of rockets?" marked the moment that the Cold War race was transferred to the domestic realm – namely, design:

 

 

The 1959 US exhibition in Moscow, also visited by Lithuanian designers, was the first opportunity to see examples of Western design firsthand, to taste Pepsi Cola or cakes baked from boxed ingredients, to try out make up, sit in luxurious American automobiles, or perhaps even meet the famous American design couple, Charles and Ray Eames. Charles and Ray EamesCharles and Ray Eames were a husband and wife team of 20th century American designers (Charles Eames, 1907–1978, and Ray Kaiser Eames, 1912–1988), who became famous for their experimental designs in the fields of architecture, furniture, graphic design, photography and experimental cinema, and are considered among the most influential designers of all time.

Charles and Ray Eames constructed a special machine in their home that allowed them to easily manipulate pressed wood. The designers developed this innovative technology in 1942 after receiving a commission from the US Navy to produce 5,000 wooden leg splints. Guided by the motto "low cost - high quality", the Eames' created various chair models, the majority of which were produced by the Herman Miller company. For this reason, they are called the designers who changed the way the 20th century sat.

In 1959, Charles and Ray Eames visited Moscow to attend the opening of the US national exhibition, where their film Glimpses of the U.S.A. was shown on seven huge screens installed in a golden geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller - the first ever multi-screen, multi-media installation.

 

International exhibitions and exchange programs in which the Soviet Union began to participate during the "Thaw" period were among the new sources of a wind of internationalization. From the mid-1950s onwards, Western news, ideas, fashions, and influences also reached Lithuania, by one route or another. First and foremost, Lithuania experienced them via specialized publications from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, as well as by traveling abroad and participating in exhibitions. Lists of books and magazines kept in the private libraries of Lithuanian artists illustrate that Soviet-era designers attentively followed news from the Western art world and studied global design trends.

 

Meanwhile, Khrushchev's response to Nixon ("We too have such things") became one of the promises that marked the development of Soviet design. That same year, the so-called Seven-Year Program (1959–1965) was inaugurated in the Soviet Union, aimed at developing industrial production and catching up to, and surpassing, the West. Echoes of the Cold War's race to modernity could also be heard in articles with such ringing titles as "Products will be excellent", "Our products must be the best in the world", or "Products shipping to 74 countries":

 

Products will be excellent: Even now directives are being issued that all products, both currently produced and newly designed, must be comparable to the best products in the world. […] We seek the active participation of artists in the creation of all new products. Povilas Kulvietis, „Gaminiai bus puikūs“, Mokslas ir technika, 1965, Nr. 2, p. 2–3.

 

Our products must be the best in the world: we must seek to make the production of Soviet enterprises comparable to the best examples existing in the world. […] Quality must be controlled always. In this regard, we must assess all serial production and make it comparable to the best contemporary products, creating industrial plans to eliminate any lagging behind. Povilas Kulvietis, „Mūsų gaminiai turi būti geriausi pasaulyje“, Mokslas ir technika, 1965, Nr. 5, p. 2–3.

 

Though these were ideological and propagandistic imperatives and promises, they were intrinsically linked to events shaping the history of Lithuanian design. The goal, however unrealistic, of catching up to and overtaking the capitalist world served as a pretext for the emergence of new design institutions and design professionals, not to mention specific modern design projects. Among the "excellent" products (in the creation of which Lithuanian designers actively participated) showcased in the 1960s in reports and exhibitions of new accomplishments, we note the regular inclusion of the Lithuanian vacuum cleaner "Saturnas", launched into production in 1963 at the Vilnius Electric Welding Equipment Factory. Shaped like a sphere and made of sky blue plastic (though other color options were offered later), the hand-held electrical vacuum cleaner aptly reflected, in all aspects, the prevailing space age aesthetics and was simultaneously a response to the famous Hoover "Constellation" vacuum cleaner of 1955.

 

Architect and designer Eugenijus Gūzas vividly recounts how this "race" and the system of "adapting foreign experience" actually impacted real life:

 

 

It should be noted that such "collections and exhibitions" of foreign products, or at least their photographic records, were also used by Vilnius agencies and individual enterprises and factories engaging in design work.