There are two important buildings at the head of Didzioji Street (Didžioji gatvė). On the right is"Frank's House", now the French Cultural Center with a café and bookshop. A symbolic coincidence: Henri Beyle, an officer in Napoleon's army who later became the writer known as Stendhal, lived here in 1812. In 1804 the architect Michael Schulz renovated the building into flats for university professors.

Among its residents was the physician Joseph Frank, who left detailed notebooks with a great deal of information on 19th century Vilnius. Philosopher Lev Karsavin, who perished in one of Stalin's concentration camps, sought refuge in this building after the Second World War.

Looking out on the facade of Franks House from the other side of Didzioji Street are the windows of the 17th-century Chodkiewicz manor house. The Lithuanian Museum of Art adopted it for use at the end of the 20th century. A guild complex on numbers 24 and 26 near Town Hall has preserved its external 15th and 16th-century architectural features.

Town Hall on Didzioji Street

The Town Hall is from the end of the 14th century, during the rule of Jogaila. It acquired its present form in the mid-18th century after a fire destroyed the earlier gothic building. Reconstruction was undertaken by Johann Christoph Glaubitz and Tommaso Russeli, and Laurynas Gucevicius completed it. In 1810 it converted into a theater, and in 1941 into an art museum. Today the Town Hall is in use for official ceremonies, concerts and exhibitions. One part of the building is today a well-known fish restaurant. Past the Town Hall, at the head of Vokieciu Street, in harmony with its surroundings sits the Contemporary Art Center.

Church of St. Casimir and Jesuit Monastery

On the south side of the Town Hall Square is the complex of the Church of St. Casimir and Jesuit Monastery. Following St. Casimir's canonization in 1604 the Jesuits began to build a church with funds of Leo Saphieha, Great Chancellor of Lithuania. The church, designed along the lines of the Il Gesu Church in Rome, came to completion in 1618. It's one of the earliest baroque constructions in Vilnius.

It was rebuilt in the mid-18th century by Tomas Zebrauskas, and it is not known whether he or Johann Christoph Glaubitz designed the striking, crown-bearing cupola. After the uprising of 1831, it converted into an Orthodox church. It returned to the Catholics in 1917, and its onion dome replaced by the crown cupola in 1941. In 1961 the sanctuary became a Museum of Atheism (reconsecrated in 1991). Modern paintings are incorporated into the three extant baroque altars. Jesuits live in the adjacent buildings, and part of the complex is now the Vilnius Jesuit High School.