Pašilaičiai, Vilnius

In 1986 Lithuanian photographer Algimantas Kunčius spends weekends in the construction site of Pašilaičiai – one of the last soviet centrally planned district in Vilnius and Lithuania. Observing stop motion of the process he created series of photo documentaries directing his camera to emerging forms of prefabricated concrete panel housing blocks – concerned with the parameters that would shape the next.
While looking into condition of the constructions this subjective inquiry uncovers machine of auto–destructive qualities in the last years of Soviet regime in Lithuania. Series of images bring into focus the processes through details and elements revealing insights into the state of a collapsing empire, bankrupt ideology, and insufficiencies of centrally planned mass architecture production.
Photo–documentary walk through Pašilaiciai district construction site happens parallel to Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986. Images of newly laid foundations and repetitive structural elements of new the housing district bare a feeling of ruins itself.