*2019 Best Lithuanian Ethnographic Homesteads - 2nd place *2020 Best Lithuanian Ethnographic Homesteads - 1st place I arrived at Pagulbis... I found deep antiquity and new people... Nature and old buildings exuded noble tranquility... Harmony... Midwinter, cold... Yes, there are still a few unique homesteads in Lithuania with wooden shingles that evoke a majestic feeling, as if being in a sanctuary. Unfortunately, most of them are doomed to disappear because of ignorance and indifference to our heritage, to our nature, in other words, to ourselves - we destroy and fade away ourselves. But Pagulby should be spoken of as a rare, delightful exception. Invited to create here, the owner of the homestead, the famous bard and entrepreneur Kazimieras Jakutis, immediately intrigued and engaged in hot poetic architecture workshops... Because change is needed: essential renovations of roofs, reinforcement of walls, landscaping, adaptation of interiors to changed functions, restoration, and creation work... and lighting for the poetry alley. How to do this so that respect for the past is preserved, but it functions as modern and alive? Examples of Lithuanian old architecture can be found in Rumšiškės and other museums. The legacy is refined, integral, but no longer inhabited. Today, in adapting heritage to current needs, architectural contrast principles are most often used: old-new, natural-synthetic, black-white.... But how to renew, change the purpose not by the principle of contrast? How to create anew, continuing the work begun by man and nature in such an environment? I try to imagine an uninterrupted Baltic architectural tradition in natural material and content.... One year of work and many circumstances, professional preparation and determination, with the help of a large team of masters and the owner - it turns out! Wood is seen and touched, then wood again and again wood... Grey, silvery, smoky, ashy... Old and new... The old protects the new, the modesty of new solutions envelops, but is monumental, embracing larger areas into a more minimal rhythmic line than heritage. Respect for the past is revealed through a new architectural purification, through the gaps of lighting strips, through the holes turning into landscape corners between the unevenness of the floors. And yet, inside and outside are created understanding that after the architectural word, the final decisions will be made by the Sun, which will color and accentuate according to itself, and will create a changing, therefore unique mood for the present. Architecture becomes space, a clean sheet for new action. ... something lies in the details, - the great challenge - the great wooden shingle. Here the changing purpose from a farmstead to a cultural repository is revealed and new functional arrangement emerges, where in the main shingle space there is a huge hall with swings and a mobile stage for performances. There is also a new bar, a relaxation area with an original spatial fireplace, and with white spiral stairs you can climb to the newly created second floor, where there are two more lounges connected by a panoramic lattice-balcony, from which you can broadly observe the old barn space, where the magic of wooden rustic created by man and ages is revealed. On the second floor, there are also several "student" sleeping rooms. There is a professional kitchen, sanitary facilities, a refrigerator room, etc.. The new planes, volumes, and furniture here are conceptually constructed as if from a pile of simple planks. Smaller, larger, thicker and thinner, but as a load of temporary materials. House of Light The vegetable garden turned into a House of Light... Loft - a sleeping haven... A huge barn - an ethnographic museum... Sauna with an apple tree growing inside... And of course, the main house, which is classically built in 1924, still stands on its excellently masonry arched cellar-wine cellar. The building is harmoniously integrated into the environment both inside and out. In interior solutions, materials and colors are used close to ancient textures and textures, and new forms are created more as assisting than dominating in the overall harmony of old and new. Of course, this is also our continuous thinking through tradition: is it alive or museum-like? Poetry readings, arts, concerts, children's camps, weddings, tastings.... Pagulbis - it's life!