Two decades of independence brought new winds of change in cultural social and economic life of our society. Many buildings from the Soviet era that used to be the centers of attention now look as if they have aged without any time passing, gradually lose their former form, visual integrity, due to the change in the political context. Café Banga is not an exception. However, though hardly recognizable, covered in advertisements, the building remains an interesting example of the late Soviet architecture. Looking closer we would see not only the non-traditional, expressive forms’ volume structure, but also a surface of reinforced concrete, which provides a special mood. Rough plastic of the concrete clearly exceed the boundaries of functionalism and takes the pursuit of architectural expression means to the field of irrationality, which with its ideological expression consciously continues vivid and metaphoric stylistics of Antonio Gaudi. It is important to notice that due to construction materials’ deficit conditions of those days, mannered concrete plastics was one of the few opportunities to reach a creative and non-traditional architectural solution. Thus, although smaller in size than the Druskininkai physiotherapy hospital, which shares similar stylistics, the Café “Banga” became an important architectural landmark of the late Soviet era in Palanga.

Vaidas Petrulis