Early life and education Landsbergis hailed from an old German
Landsberg family that traced its roots to a
ministerialis who lived in 1055 at the
Werden Abbey. His son together with his classmates
Valdas Adamkus (future
President of Lithuania) and (son of the former President
Kazys Grinius) published 16 issues of anti-Nazi
Jaunime, budėk! (Youth, Stay Alert!). Gabrielius was arrested by the
Gestapo in May 1944. Together with 26 other Lithuanians, some of them leaders of the
Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania, he was transferred from one prison to another. Landsbergis followed his son's journey, smuggled him food, and petitioned Nazi officials (including
Alfred Rosenberg, his acquaintance from the Riga Polytechnical Institute and the
Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories). Gabrielius and other Lithuanian prisoners were eventually freed by the Americans in
Bayreuth in April 1945. Landsbergis published a memoir about his efforts to free his son in 1991. He became a
displaced person (DP) and worked as a teacher at a Lithuanian DP camp in in
Eichstätt. In 1946–1949, he taught at the university of the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in
Munich. In 1949, he emigrated to Australia and worked there as an architect at the Housing and Construction Department in
Melbourne. Some of the projects he worked on include the embassy of Australia in
New Delhi, hospital in
Port Moresby (
Papua New Guinea), government administrative building in Melbourne, tax office in
Brisbane, factory for Burghart Hurle and Associates. He was also active with the
Lithuanian Australian community.
Return to Soviet Lithuania In 1959, he returned to Kaunas in
Soviet Lithuania and worked as architect and restorer of monuments. From 1961 until retirement in 1984, he worked as an architect at the Institute for the Conservation of Monuments () first in Kaunas and since 1970 in Vilnius. Many of the projects from this period remained unrealized. In 1966, Landsbergis donated his archives (more than 2,000 files) to the Lithuanian Archives of Literature and Art making one of the most comprehensive and complete architectural archives in Lithuania. In 1973, for this 80th birthday, an exhibition was organized in his honor at the
Arts Exhibition Palace and he was named the Honored Architect of the Lithuanian SSR. In 1991, he was recognized as the honorary citizen of Kaunas. In 1993, his 100th birthday was celebrated by the
Lithuanian Union of Architects with a ceremony at the
National Library of Lithuania and an exhibition at the
Lithuanian Art Museum. The same year,
Science and Encyclopedia Press published a monograph by Jolita Kančienė and Jonas Minkevičius about Landsbergis. Landsbergis died on 21 May 1993 in Vilnius and was buried in the
Petrašiūnai Cemetery in Kaunas. In 1993, the former Architect Street in
Eiguliai district of Kaunas was renamed in his honor. Another monograph about Landsbergis was published in 1997 by Algimantas Nakas. Another exhibition showcasing Landsbergis' works was organized in 2018. ==Works==