Lukiškės Square is an urban space in the centre of Vilnius that took shape in the 19th century. In the days of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the area of the square lay in a suburb of Vilnius. In 1860 the area was turned into a large marketplace and began to be integrated into the city. In 1920 a memorial stone was laid in memory of the insurgents of 1863 who were executed here. During the Polish occupation in 1920 the square was renamed after J. Piłsudski, and in the Soviet occupation period it became Soviet Square and later Lenin Square. After the Lenin monument was dismantled in 1991, there was much public debate about the purpose of this space: in 2007 Vilnius City Municipality held creative workshops to find a purpose for the square, and in 2008 a competition was held to create a "Freedom" symbol and redesign the square. The reconstruction of the square, the first in the entire period of independence, took a year and a half. The renewed Lukiškės Square opened in November 2017. The architects G. Čaikauskas and L. Naujokaitis presented a new idea and concept for the square, and the renewed square became both a representative space and a cosy place for townspeople to gather, with plenty of green areas and room for Lithuania's state celebrations and commemorations.