An architectural and institutional monster that dominates and terrorises the local art scene with the projects surpassing the standard definition of kunsthalle. A white/black cube, a museum, and a laboratory for experimentation, it simultaneously has been presenting itself as the best club and guesthouse, the best venue for design and fashion shows. It also had its own late-night show on national TV and introduced such ambitious projects as The Baltic Triennial of International Art, Parallel Progressions, CAC Interviu magazine, Café Talks, CAC Reading Room, Emission exhibition series, etc.

A perfect example of Soviet modernist architecture, located at the every centre of the Old Town, the present CAC building was inaugurated in 1968 as the Art Exhibition Palace to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. In 1992, the building came to house the newly-established CAC under the first and only director Kęstutis Kuizinas, aged 23 at the time. The less inventive sources quote the CAC website which states that “the CAC has been the largest venue for contemporary art in the Baltic States total and one of the largest art institutions in Post-Soviet Europe”. VK, 2009