PANERIŲ ST. 43 · VILNIUS · 1940 → 2026
The walls never moved.
Everything between them did.
The same brickwork since 1940: a sewing-factory design, two wartime blows, three builds, and a conference centre opened in 2026.
- 3 times built
- 146 workers in 1947 · of the 600 designed for
- 1 000 guests · from 2026
THE SAME HALL
One hall, three times. The walls are the same.
CHRONICLE
Seven years to the first stitch
The building you will gather in was built three times.
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12 December 1940
The order
In the months of the first Soviet occupation, Motiejus Šumauskas, People's Commissar for Local Industry, signs the order to build State Sewing Factory No. 5 for men's and women's clothing. Vladas Balceris is appointed director. Design work begins eight days later.
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1941
Drawings, a million, and war
Engineer Tadas Zatorskis (Pramprojektas) designs it. Six hundred jobs are planned — 400 for women, 200 for men — two sewing departments and shared cutting and finishing rooms. The million roubles run out before the drawings do: only the 38.48 m central block is built, the eastern wing drops to one storey. That same summer, war.
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7 July 1944
The first blow — the brick remains
During the fight for the railway station junction, aerial bombardment burns the wooden structures of the brick premises. The brick remains.
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12 January 1945, 16:45
The second blow, from the same junction
A powerful explosion goes off at the railway station. The building is damaged again. The same junction that got this building bombed is now the main reason to come to it: the station is a fifteen-minute walk away.
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July 1947
The first stitch
The rebuild was rushed: production was planned for the following year. That is when the trusses appear that still carry the hall. The first goods are sewn by invited home-tailors — no conveyor. 146 workers: a quarter of what had been designed for. Soon 107 remain. From September, trade-school graduates join.
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1948–1962
The factory grows up
New blocks go up, designed for 200–400 sewing machines. In 1950 the men's classical jacket workshop is founded. In 1962 Lelija becomes the lead enterprise of a production association; branches follow in Ukmergė (1967), Rokiškis (1968), Širvintos (1970), Šeduva (1974) and Vabalninkas (1985).
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December 2022 → 2026
Heritage, and new work
The building enters the Register of Cultural Property. Reconstruction starts: developer Darius Žakaitis, architect Audrius Ambrasas. The brick wall that separated the factory from the city for decades comes down.
2023
No floors yet, no heating, no stage — but already hosting events.
Real photographs from 2023, taken in this building before the rebuild.
THE SAME BUILDING
One geometry, two programmes
The 1940 design divided this building into sewing departments and shared rooms. In 2026 it is divided into halls.
The 1940 design
Six hundred jobs were planned: 400 for women and 200 for men. Two sewing departments, women's and men's clothing, and two shared rooms — cutting and final finishing.
The 2026 halls
Three halls, a lounge and two stages. Up to 1,000 guests in one building.
The 1940 zones are indicative. The brief lists the rooms but not their sizes, so all four are drawn equal: this is a diagram, not a surveyed drawing. The 2026 plan is exact.
HOW IT WORKED
From home-tailors to four hundred machines
The factory did not begin as a factory. It became one over thirteen years.
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01 July 1947
A start with no conveyor
The first goods were sewn by invited home-tailors — people who until then had worked at home, on their own machines, at their own pace. No lines, no quotas.
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02 From September 1947
Cutting — where everything begins
Cloth is laid in layers, patterns go on top, the whole stack is cut at once. From September trade-school graduates joined — the first generation trained to work in a workshop, not at home.
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03 1950
The jacket — the hardest work in the house
In a garment factory the classical jacket is the top rung: linings, interfacings, the shape of a shoulder, a lapel that has to fall by itself. Factories that are only starting out do not open one.
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04 1948–1950
Rows of machines
New blocks, designed for between 200 and 400 sewing machines. From now on the pace is set not by the tailor but by the line.
LIGHT
The tall windows are not for looks
Sewing needs daylight: under a lamp you cannot see a seam, a shade, a flaw in the cloth. That is why the windows in Zatorskis's drawings are so tall, and the workshops so long and narrow. It is precisely the window forms and their layout that the Register of Cultural Property protects today.
Swipe the photos →
Once the building entered the Register of Cultural Property, part of it became untouchable.
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01
The internal columns
Left where they stood. The Large Hall has no columns — the trusses carry it; elsewhere the columns stayed visible.
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02
Dvarčionys ceramic tiles
Old Vilnius-made tiles — one of those small things that normally get stripped out on day one.
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03
The factory's mechanisms
Salvaged equipment parts — no longer for production, now for the interior. What used to sew becomes what is looked at.
AND WHAT ABOUT LELIJA?
The factory outlived its building
Lelija still sews — just not here. Around a million garments a year, more than 80% of them going to Germany, Scandinavia, the USA, the UK and Spain. In 2018 the company employed over 880 people; in 2024, about 260. This block lost its production well before that, and was taken over derelict in 2022.
The name survived too. Lelija is Lithuanian for lily; in Latin, lilium. That is exactly what this building's revival project was called in 2023 — Tech Zity Lilium. The name is still in use today: the project continues to be developed by UAB Project Lilium.
No empty promises.
We lead in reconstruction sustainability, energy-class upgrades and interior element reuse. The building is certified under BREEAM In-Use.
Sources: Department of Cultural Heritage · Universal Lithuanian Encyclopaedia · Lithuanian Museums' Collections (LIMIS)
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