Литовська вища технічна школа в контексті еміграції: становлення, діяльність, спадщина

The aim of the article is to study the activity of Lithuanian architects and engineers in the adult education sphere, while living in German displaced persons camps. The results of this study reveal that although architects in the refugee camps were cut off from the usual working and living conditions, as well as had no opportunities to realise themselves in designing buildings, still, their professional activity was not interrupted. One of the most important priorities was the organisation of studies and the preparation of the young generation. In exile, architects formed the Union of Lithuanian Exiled Engineers, published various types of specialised press, organised architectural congresses, polemicised on the issues of the reconstruction of Lithuania, lectured and created education institutions. The Lithuanian Higher Technical School in Nürtingen, based on the higher school that was founded in Kaunas during the times of independent Lithuania, is chosen as a case study. Conclusions. A few years spent in refugee camps did not become a period of complete professional pause. The direction which had begun in interwar Lithuania was not completely interrupted during the war and the post-war period, but was modified by political and economic circumstances. Even without having normal working conditions, architects and engineers formed societies and created institutions. One of the first such institutions was the Lithuanian Higher Technical School in Nürtingen. Future professionals were trained there and in the schools that followed. They all firmly hoped soon to be able to return to a newly free Lithuania and take care of its reconstruction. Therefore, the higher technical schools became a link between the qualifications and skills acquired between the wars, a period in the displaced persons camp and a new phase of emigration. Even during harsh circumstances, Lithuanians managed to maintain professional connections and partly architectural practices. This also helped in the later Lithuanian emigration to the United States.