Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis

Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis (10 March 1893 – 21 May 1993) was a Lithuanian architect most active in interwar Lithuania (1926–1939). He was the father of Vytautas Landsbergis, the first Lithuanian head of state after independence from the Soviet Union.

Landsbergis's father, the playwright Gabrielius Landsbergis-Žemkalnis, was an active supporter of the Lithuanian National Revival. Landsbergis studied architecture at the Riga Polytechnical Institute. During World War I, he was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army and completed a school for junior officers. Upon return to Lithuania, he joined the newly established Lithuanian Army and fought in the Lithuanian Wars of Independence. He was taken prisoner by Poland, but managed to escape. He then continued his studies of architecture at the Higher School of Architecture in Rome (now a department of the Sapienza University). Landsbergis returned to Lithuania in 1926 and became one of the most popular and sought-after architects in Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania. He was one of the leaders of a group of about 40 modernist architects working in Kaunas. His son together with his classmates Valdas Adamkus (future President of Lithuania) and (son of the former President Kazys Grinius) published 16 issues of anti-Nazi Jaunime, budėk! (Youth, Stay Alert!). Gabrielius was arrested by the Gestapo in May 1944.

Vytautas, Landsbergis-Žemkalnis