KVI research seminar: Marija Drėmaitė “Migration, heritage and resilience”

The talk examines migration and the preservation of collective memory. Grounded in several case studies, this analysis explores the role of architectural heritage in sustaining cultural identity and resilience in contexts of displacement, geopolitical crisis, and contemporary restoration efforts. The paper contributes to current debates on heritage by shifting attention from material authenticity to the dynamic processes of cultural transmission, memory work, and symbolic attachment.

Dr. Marija Drėmaitė is a Professor in Architectural History and Cultural Heritage at the Faculty of History, Vilnius University. She specializes in 20th-century architectural heritage through historical, sociological, and anthropological perspectives. She is the author of Baltic Modernism: Architecture and Housing in Soviet Lithuania (Berlin, 2017) and the editor of Architecture of Optimism: The Kaunas Phenomenon, 1918–1940 (Vilnius, 2018). She led the research team behind the successful nomination of “Modernist Kaunas,” which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023. Currently she leads a research project “Migration, Heritage and Resilience: Lithuanian Architects and Architecture in the crisis period 1939–1959” funded by the Lithuanian Research Council (LMTLT).