Exhibition “Brick by Brick”

Lithuania is a land of forests, therefore wood was the predominant building material for many centuries. The Balts and their northern neighbors, the Livonians, became acquainted with masonry construction quite late – at the end of the 12th century, when the Bishop of Livonia built the first brick church in these lands on the Daugava River.

The pagan Lithuanian state, which was formed in the 13th century, needed to defend itself from the intensive expansion of the Order, therefore in the 2d half of the 13th century – the 14th century, the people began to build first brick defensive buildings – castles. With the spread of Christianity, the first brick churches also appeared in the 14th–15th centuries, brick buildings for civil purposes – merchants’ houses, warehouses and brick residential houses for townspeople – appeared in the cities governed by Magdeburg law. At the end of the 15th century – the 16th century after the perfection of brick production and brick architecture, a Gothic masterpiece was created in Vilnius – the Church of St. Anne.

When looking at the masonry, one rarely pays attention to the brick, because it, even an ancient one, seems simple and not surprising, because it is just one of many completely identical wall particles. However, if one looks closer, one can see that the bricks are not so identical.

This exhibition offers a closer look at the brick – learn how it was made, why it acquired one form or another and what information it can provide today about the everyday environment of the people who made it.
The exhibition displays bricks from the 13th–18th centuries, stored in the collections of the National Museum of Lithuania and the Museum of Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, found in Vilnius, Kaunas and other places in Lithuania. The brick-making process is presented using iconographic and video materials.

The National Museum of Lithuania’s exhibition “Brick by Brick” will open in the Bastion of the Vilnius Defence Wall (Bokšto g. 20, Vilnius) at 5 PM on the 21st of May, 2025.

Organizer and partners

Organizer
National Museum of Lithuania

Partners
Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania
Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania
Lithuanian Institute of History