Adelė and Paulius Galaunė House Museum: a 1932 modernist home preserving stories of opera, museum-building, and collecting

A 1932 house on Vydūno Avenue

The three-storey masonry house was built in 1932 in a prestigious position beside Ąžuolynas. Authorship is normally attributed to Arnas Funkas, although Nikolajus Mačiulskis's stamp also appears beside Funkas's signature on archival drawings.

It is an early Lithuanian modernist work: horizontal lines accent rectangular masses, front windows form an almost square field, and glazing turns the corners of the side stairwells.

An opera singer and a builder of museums

Adelė Galaunienė was an opera singer; Paulius Galaunė was an art historian, educator, collector, and formative figure in Lithuanian museology. Their home presents those careers as one interwar cultural milieu rather than isolated biographies.

Paulius Galaunė directed the M. K. Čiurlionis museum and systematically collected Lithuanian art and folk art. His work explains why the library, prints, and folk art here belong to the history of museology rather than serving as decoration.

Nationalisation, donation, and the museum opening

The house was nationalised in 1940. The Galaunė family retained the first floor, while institutions and a sports dormitory occupied other parts of the building. The family moved out in 1971.

After independence was restored, the property was returned to Paulius Galaunė's daughter Dalia Kaupienė-Augūnienė and Kazimiera Galaunienė. They donated the house and grounds to the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in 1992, and the house museum opened on 14 December 1996.

What the house museum preserves

Paulius Galaunė's study is presented according to its arrangement before the family left in 1971. Its desk and bookcase were made around 1925 to Galaunė's own design, while his multilingual library contains more than 12,000 printed works.

Adelė Galaunienė's salon retains authentic family furniture, late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century opera scores, and works by M. K. Čiurlionis, Adomas Galdikas, Jonas Janulis, and other artists. These details distinguish the memorial environment from later museum interpretation.

A biographical display dedicated to Kazimiera Kairiūkštytė-Galaunienė opened in 2024. More than 150 photographs, manuscript documents, and personal objects explain her life and her role in preserving the Galaunė legacy and establishing the museum.

Temporary exhibitions and education keep the house active, so content can differ between visits. Check which exhibition or guided programme is current before travelling.

Hours and planning a visit

On 22 July 2026, the museum listed opening from 11:00 to 17:00 on Tuesday-Wednesday and Friday-Saturday, and from 11:00 to 19:00 on Thursday. Last admission is 30 minutes before closing; the tariff effective from 4 May 2026 lists standard admission at EUR 5.

Confirm current hours, temporary exhibitions, concessions, and prices officially. Before entering, walk around the facade and notice the grouped windows and corner stair glazing.

Inside, ask which rooms and furnishings belong to the house's authentic history. This helps distinguish traces of family life, reconstructed rooms, and changing exhibitions.