Business and Commercial Center Europa
The city of Vilnius was found in 1323. Howewer its history reaches back earlier times.The Old Town occupies a territory of 360 ha and is one of the largest old towns in Eastern Europe. The Old Town lies at the confluence of Neris and Vilnele. The new city centre is being developed along the bank of the Neris , at short distance of the old city centre.
The heart of the new city centre is the building of Vilnius City Municipality, the building of County Administration, Europa Shoping Centre, the Europa apartments block and the Europa Bussines Centre ( Europa Tower,ET), which is the focal vertical point of the new city centre.All the buildings are joinged together by Europa square.The whole complex of buildings has been completed in May 2004, on the day of Lithuanian s accession to the European Union.
The main axis of building composition is spacious passage covered with an imposing glass roof. It s curved shape reminds us of impression of cozy streets in old town of Vilnius.Various shops and stories are dislocated around the passage which has direct connection with the ET and Europa Square. The whole composition of the new citycenter, meanwhile, is naturally linked with the White Bridge route. In this way it is widely open to let streams of people from newly developing surroundings in.
The ET vertical is very important to the silhouette of the city.It towers above the city from the perspective of majority of main streets. The tower is at the top of the architectural hill of the new city centre.
The main source of inspiration for the ET sihouette has been the silhouettes of the towers of Vilnius churches. The ET consists of two glass semicylinders of different height, divided by stone staircases. The top of the tower looks like beingcrumbled away as one cylinder is higher than other.The blocks of staircases also differ in size. Thus the tower matches up with the panoramas of Vilnius without any aggression.