This study, prepared by a workgroup of the Faculty of History, Vilnius University, is another document of a consistent and purposeful activity in the attempt to reconstruct the Grand Duke’s Palace of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. The study empirically verifies and corrects the three zone principle (authenticity – hypothesis (reasonable – pilotage) – modernity). The principle had to tackle theoretical and practical problems related to the purpose of the future Grand Duke’s Palace that arise due to lack of scientific information necessary for reconstruction, unequal degree of its reliability, confrontations among different visions related to the building’s purpose. Another function of the principle was to consolidate the concept of reconstruction (based on the principle of “hypotheses’ grading” found in architects’ projects) and the concept of purpose into a solid conception. In order to assess the zoning of the building’s reconstruction reliability, the study features both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the current state of archaeological, architectural, historical, as well as art criticism–related research. The qualitative analysis, which was performed after publicly published reports and publications had been assessed, shows what knowledge has been acquired, what the state of knowledge systematization and generalization is and to what extent reconstruction is based on objective knowledge. The quantitative analysis, carried out in the form of a questionnaire survey, evaluates the data available to specialists but not to the general public. Conclusions of the comparative analysis (cartogram of reconstruction reliability) of the latter research do not confirm that the three zone principle is implicitly present in reconstruction and purpose of the Grand Duke’s Palace and thus forces to correct this principle accordingly. In addition to that, the obtained data reveal incongruity between architects’ and researchers’ data, which suggests excessive optimism on architects’ side. In summarizing the results of research and the current reconstruction situation, the workgroup of Vilnius University proposes to be honest towards future visitors of the Grand Duke’s Palace and, following theoretical principles of contemporary heritage protection, museology and history, to reveal how modern decisions have been made.
The study’s appendices contain lists of the main documents, research reports in various fields, as well as bibliography related to the Grand Duke’s Palace and its reconstruction.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
