The Diocesan Curia is one of the most beautiful buildings in Marijampolė. The white building with openwork balconies at the end of P. Kriaučiūnas Street harmoniously blends into area of Vytautas the Great park.
The curia was designed by famous architect V. Landsbergis-Žemkalnis and built in 1934.
The modernism forms of the house somewhat associate it with Italian architectural traditions. The building is composed of two perpendicularly combined two-storey housings. The composition looks dynamic and plastic because of arcade loggias. The loggias and terraces are surrounded by concrete open texture ornamented fences. The most magnificent side of the building is facing park to the south. The walls are crowned with a high profiled parapet, which visually reduces the height of the tile.
At first building was meant to be a retreat for priests emeritus. In 1940 it was nationalized. During the WW II the Gestapo Special Section turned the place into it’s office, in the post-war era it was NKVD headquarters.
There were so many detainees, that the cellars of the building did not have the capacity to hold them all. Other locations of the city served as prison chambers: houses on 19 and 26 Vytauto St., 51 Kudirkos St., 39 Kauno St., 13 P. Kriaučiūno St., 1 Laisvės St., 2 Partizanų St., 6 Sporto, farm of Masaitis in Pabaigai and buildings of Mikalinė manor. After horrid tortures people were killed and buried in Vytautas park.
Later the house served as an orphanage. Until 1972 it was Kapsukas district pioneers house, the music school, the art school in 1982. The building was returned to the church after Lithuania’s independence had been regained. In 1991 the Curia of Vilkaviškis Diocese was established in the premises.
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