Architecture of consumption: shopping centres in Soviet Lithuania from the 1960s to 1980

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Prekybos centrai; Vartojimo architektūra; Sovietų visuomenė; Lietuva; Vilnius; Kaunas; Klaipėda. Keywords: Shopping centers; Architecture of consumption; Soviet society; Lithuania; Vilnius; Kaunas; Klaipėda.Reikšminiai žodžiai: Prekybos centrai; Sovietmetis; 20 amžius; Sovietinė visuomenė; Reklama; Vartojimas; Shopping centres; Soviet era; 20th century; Consumption; Soviet Society; Advertising.

ENThe construction of Soviet shopping centres that started in the 1960s marked a new stage in the consumption possibilities of Soviet society with the environments of consumption playing an important role. The main objective of this article is stated as follows: to analyse, following the LSSR (Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic) case, what the idea of Soviet shopping centres and its realization in the LSSR was and to ascertain how the Soviet authorities used the shopping centres for the development of consumption in Soviet society employing the advertising of shopping centres and the contraposition between socialism and capitalism. To achieve the research objective, the main method used was to analyse the published and unpublished sources that reflect the process of the appearance of Soviet shopping centres. The research demonstrates that the idea of Soviet shopping centres was not an original product of the Soviet system. Some aspects of their construction and composition were copied and there were attempts to implement them using Western practices. [From the publication]

• Baltic modernism : architecture and housing in Soviet Lithuania / Marija Drėmaitė. Berlin : DOM Publishers, 2017. 319 p.
• Collectivist ideals and Soviet consumer spaces: mikrorayon commercial centres in Vilnius, Lithuania and Tallinn, Estonia / Matas Šiupšinskas, Epp Lankots. Housing estates in the Baltic countries: the legacy of central planning in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania / editors: Daniel Baldwin Hess, Tiit Tammaru. Cham: Springer, 2019. P. 301-320.
• Soviet consumer goods advertising: propaganda and consumption in the 1950s–1980s in Lithuania / Brigita Tranavičiūtė. Lithuanian historical studies. 2018, vol. 22, p. 111-135.