The Ministry of Culture informed the Vilnius city municipality that it does not have a legal basis to re-organize the competition for the idea of an artistic-architectural monument to President Antanas Smetona.
"The Ministry of Culture, for its part, implemented all the necessary orders when organizing the competition. A draft of the targeted grant agreement was sent to the municipality on the transfer of the authors' property rights. Therefore, the ministry does not have any legal basis to hold a competition for the idea of a new monument. We have officially informed the Vilnius City Municipality about this and we will wait for clearer answers from it to the questions regarding the further future of the monument to A. Smetona", said Minister of Culture Simonas Kairys.
Acquainted with Vilnius city municipalities council resolution "Regarding the Antanas Smetona monument", the Ministry of Culture assumes that the municipality does not plan to sign a contract for a special targeted grant for the construction of this monument. In this case, unused funds should be returned to the state budget.
The creation of the monument to A. Smetonai and its access to the building on Gedimina Ave. 13, in Vilnius, the commission of the competition for the artistic-architectural idea of the installation chose the project "622522" as the winner of the first place, the authors of which are Gediminas Antanas Sakalis, Kazys Venclovas and Indrė Rakauskaitė.
The competition was announced by the Ministry of Culture, organized by the Union of Lithuanian Architects, and financed by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. It was planned to allocate 250 thousand for the implementation of the monument project. euros.
