Permanent Exhibition at Kaunas Town Hall
Today, the museum offers nineteen exhibition spaces that explain what the city is in general and what kind of city Kaunas is.
In the basement of the Town Hall, you will get acquainted with the districts of Kaunas and, through them, with the peculiarities of Kaunas, and perhaps of the city in general. Walking from space to space, from stand to stand, you will join us in the search for an answer to the difference between the city and the countryside, what are the boundaries that the city draws and when does it apply them, when does the city mobilise, struggle, what does it create, and how does it do that.
Continuing the story of Kaunas on the second floor, we will invite you to experience the city through its three fundamental components – its people, its nature and its material, infrastructural expression. How does water get to the taps of Kaunas residents? Where does the container of yoghurt you eat go and what happens to it? And how does the city limit and trample nature? Is nature tamed? What is a Kaunas citizen like? What is his worldview? Let’s try to find the answers together in this part of the exhibition.
The second floor also focuses on the unique details found in Kaunas, and sometimes only in the Town Hall. Here you can explore the symbols of Kaunas, the rituals of everyday life found only in Kaunas, take a look at Kaunas balconies, and even take a look from one of them, perhaps the most important in Kaunas.
The stairs from the White Hall lead to a tiny curiosity room, a space of changing exhibitions – the “City Archive. Memory”. Here, in a little room between the second and third floors, Kaunas residents tell the stories of their city, subjective, experienced and unique. The stories here sometimes overlap with the grand narrative of history, and sometimes provide unexpected alternative perspectives.
The stairs or lift up to the Town Hall attic lead to the pavilion, a space of changing exhibitions. Not everything that Kaunas has could be put together in a permanent exhibition, so detail by detail it will be revealed in the changing major exhibitions. From here you will climb the stairs to the last exhibition space, the Town Hall Tower. As you climb the stairs of the tower, you can look out over the city skyline.
