KAUNAS 2022

Lithuania's second largest city, Kaunas, located at the confluence of the Memel and Neris rivers, was the European Capital of Culture 2022. The programme under the motto "From temporary to contemporary" included more than 100 events, including 40 festivals, 60 exhibitions and over 250 events of various artistic genres. The centrepiece is the "Myth of Kaunas" - concerts, exhibitions, fire and light shows and much more were planned under the themes "The Confusion", "The Confluence" and "The Contract". Quite a few of them revolved around the newly invented Beast of Kaunas - a kind of mascot.

Highlights also included a solo exhibition of the artist William Kentridge and a retrospective of Yoko Ono.

The extraordinary, complex, changeable history of the city should also be emphasised: the whole kaleidoscope of epochs and systems seems to be visible in Kaunas. The designation of the Capital of Culture is intended to celebrate and highlight the richness of the European cultural heritage. 

This includes Kaunas Modernism, which, along with Vilnius Baroque, is another architectural style in Lithuanian history, and from which a distinctive school of architecture has emerged. The large concentration of modernist buildings built over the course of just over a decade is now considered unique in the whole of Europe. It encompasses a range of the modernist architectural tendencies of the time, the search for a national style and the representations of national culture. The majority of these buildings remained undestroyed during the Second World War.  
In 2015, 44 objects of modernist Kaunas architecture from the interwar period were awarded the European Heritage Label. In 2017, Kaunas became one of the UNESCO Cities of Design. 

Kaunas was the second time a Lithuanian city has been European Capital of Culture - this time together with Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg and Novi Sad in Serbia. In 2009, the capital Vilnius held the title, which has been awarded for one year at a time since 1985.

Offizielle Homepage: https://kaunas2022.eu/en/ 
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