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In 1970, the EXPO world fair was held in Osaka, Japan. In this exhibition, The Malachite Casket designed by the architect and designer, professor emeritus of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Tadas Baginskas, was exhibited in the Soviet Union’s pavilion. Artworks for this project were also created by other renowned Lithuanian artists – Romualdas and Algimantas Mizgiris, Kazimiera Zimblytė, Gintautėlė Laimutė Baginskienė, Laimutis Ločeris and Arvydas Každailis. The Malachite Casket displayed at the world fair EXPO’70 in Japan was an extraordinary project. Its design was quite a rare example of an interaction of a vision of a mythologized and mystified worldview with a functional display of objects. The images of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, the Malachite Mistress and the Malachite Casket corresponded to the material qualities (minerals) of the objects held in the Malachite Casket and the stylistic features of artworks (fluorescence, gloss, glowing, mysteriousness), as well as the exhibition structure itself, reminiscent of a malachite casket. The relation between the design and the image of the Malachite Mistress in this project is paradoxical and basically reversed – it did not exist at the beginning but was adapted later, when the project was already underway. Despite the reversed order of generating ideas and their implementation, the creative idea, the project title that appeared later, and the conceived image ideally overlapped. The title The Malachite Casket given to the project created associations with both the symbolism (the zone of symbols) of the entire EXPO’70 and the principles of metabolist architecture used in the exhibition plan. Though the image used in the project belonged to another culture, it actually helped the creators to disaffiliate themselves from extraneous Soviet ideology. The geological topic and the design of mineral displays was highly prominent in Baginskas’s creative biography. In an interview, the designer emphasized that he avoided ideologized themes and basically created the design of geology and furniture exhibitions. Besides, even though the project was commissioned by the Soviet Union that held Lithuania under occupation, its creators managed to make an original statement. Already at the beginning of the creative dialogue between Baginskas and Anatoly Vassilyev, when they generated ideas for The Malachite Casket, their different approaches to the exhibition design – minimalist and theatrical – were revealed. These differences may have been determined by several factors – professional and cultural. Baginskas was an architect and designer, while Vassilyev was a scenographer and theatre artist, thus it was perhaps natural and understandable that some display design solutions were theatrical. Vassilyev treated the display as a theatre stage and sought to present objects and exhibits as props. Baginskas with his wholistic vision of the entire exhibition gave much attention to details. These two approaches to the exhibition as a theatre stage and an exhibition space dictated different perspectives of the gaze and, alongside, of showcasing the exhibits. It would be one-sided to regard the theatrical-conditional and detailed designer’s approach as suitable and unsuitable, good or bad. As Baginskas noted, looking for a compromise and doing a creative collaboration was much more important. From the cultural viewpoint, it should be noted that while creating the design for The Malachite Casket, Baginskas tended to West-oriented design solutions, more abstract artistic expression and Scandinavian aesthetics. When Vassilyev remarked that his design would have been more suitable for the Scandinavian rather than Soviet pavilion, Baginskas took it as a great compliment showing his resolution to develop the West-oriented Lithuanian design trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jolanta Bagdzevičienė is one of the most prominent Lithuanian designers, a member of the Architects' Union who won acclaim in various design competitions and exhibitions "Lithuanian Furniture", "Furniture", and the competition of "Product of the Year" held by the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists. Her creative career spans two periods - Soviet and newly independent Lithuania. Bagdzevičienė worked in exhibition design, designed furniture for home and public interiors. Bagdzevičienė's professional career began in the early 1970s. In 1972, she started studying architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the Vilnius Civil Engineering Institute (VISI; today, VGTU - Vilnius Gediminas Technical University). In 1977, she got a job at the leading institution of furniture design in Lithuania in the Soviet period - the Bureau of Furniture Design and Construction (hereinafter BFDC), where top Lithuanian designers were employed. At the BFDC, Bagdzevičienė worked at the Department of Home Furniture Design, and also designed furniture for public spaces, carcass furniture of various functions and chairs, took part in artistic councils, and was involved in developing the GOST standard. Bagdzevičienė's projects created in the period before 1990 - furniture for the Palace of Achievements of National Economy of the LSSR (today, Vilnius Exhibition Palace, Litex-po), metal chairs for canteens, and modifications of the "Norwegian chair" -should be mentioned. The restoration of independence in Lithuania brought changes to all fields of life. The BFDC was dissolved. The former design creation and production chain also fell apart. Bagdzevičienė worked in the BFDC up until the restoration of independence in 1990, and later, like part of other former employees, was involved in the restructuring of the BFDC in the period of transition. Until 1998, Bagdzevičienė worked in the joint-stock company Skraja (today, AB Skraja, a furniture and industry centre), and later, at the Vilnius Furniture Production Company (today, AB Vilniaus baldai), SBA baldai company, and UAB Baldora. After the restoration of independence, Bagdzevičienė worked by commission for various institutions. She designed furniture for the Presidential Palace of the Republic of Lithuania, the customer service hall and administrative premises of the Vilnius branch of the Bank of Agriculture, offices, the canteen and conference halls of the Bank of Lithuania, and various embassies (the Embassy of Ukraine to Vilnius, the embassies of the Republic of Lithuania to Warsaw, Tallinn, and the Hague), designed furniture for offices and home furniture sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]