Hermann Gerlach House

Coordinates: 55.716948 21.128029

Object address: Herkaus Manto street 25, Klaipeda, Lithuania

Municipality: Klaipėda

The first owner of this place was C.F. Graff as the owner of the site, inscribed in the Plan of 1840. Later this plot was acquired by the merchant C. Liedtke.

In 19th century a merchant J. G. Gerlach bought this domain. In 1874 a descendant of Gerlach family Hermann Gerlach tore down the old house and built a new residence. The press wrote that it was the most beautiful house in the town. This house was designed in the Neo-Renaissance style. Author of the project is unknown. Interior layout of house was asymmetrical, has had several entrances. On the ground floor there was office, which was accessible from the street side. On this entrance door to this day remained the monogram “HG” – Herman Gerlach. On the second floor there were designed living rooms. To this day an interesting relief, depicting winged woman, remained on the rearmost facade. The yard also had household buildings, garden, well.

This domain belonged to Gerlach family till 1935. After H. Gerlach‘s widow of M. Gerlach having sold this building to the city, here moved city library „Stadtbücherei Memel“. It is believed that the city acquired the building on very favorable terms, as the pension was paid to M.Gerlach as late as her death. Now the Klaipėda County I.Simonaityte Public Library is operating in this building.    

Although the library counts its establishment in the year from the 1950‘s, but it was settled in this building only in 1952.         

The library was named after the writer Ieva Simonaitytė in 1978 and continues to bear this name to this day. There is no data if the writer herself had visited this library before the war, when she lived in Klaipėda, or after the war, when she visited the city. However, the library is full of references to her. The newest piece of art, dedicated to Ieva Simonaitytė, is the glass panel, designed on the lobby of the ground floor by Zenonas Vaičekonis, the artist from Kaunas, in 2007.
Meanwhile, the oldest piece is the stained glass Ieva Simonaitytė by Andrius Giedrimas, placed above the entrance to the old library building back in 1984.
The library also exhibits the portrait of the famous writer, painted by Eduardas Malinauskas in 1985 and the plaster bas-relief, donated to the library by the sculptor Justas Mickevičius in 1994.

Besides historical building, in the Sundial courtyard of the library there are some more attractive objects to visit:
Memorial to Language
Sundial „Book of time“   
Sculpture „Book“ (author Juozas Šikšnelis)
Anchor
Natural monument Oak
Historical object of culture heritage – Shelter (bunker), built in 1944.     

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