The Tbilgorprojekt building, once home to the main design institute of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), at first glance looked like a typical brutalist Soviet-era building. On closer inspection, however, the sun arches over each window gave the building a uniquely Georgian finish and provided much needed coolness during the capital Tbilisi’s hot summers. The impressive architecture embodied the mission of those who designed it – young Georgian architects trained in the USSR, whose vision of a future Tbilisi fused the modern and the vernacular. Of course, that vision is gone, and as of this year, so is the Tbilgorprojekt building. It has been bulldozed to make way for a luxury hotel of a kind found in any other capital – and capitalist – city.
Like the flashy office blocks and apartment buildings that have sprung up around the country’s major cities, the hotel is not built to serve ordinary citizens, but rather foreign capital. In the 30 years since the fall of the USSR, Georgia has been struggling to fulfil post-independence aspirations.
