THE IRONY OF FATE
TBILISI’S SOVIET CATALYST
For over one hundred years, the centralized Soviet bureaucracy determined the urban landscape of Georgia. Housing complexes such as those seen in Gldani District and similar microrayons - pre-planned residential complexes - continue to plague Georgia’s capital city, Tbilisi, in its post-Soviet life. Due to this imposition, many of its citizens have been left to grapple with redefining their architectural and urban identity. The question that post-socialist cities must ask is whether they will continue to allow these sites to remain in their current state.
In contemporary times, it is necessary to preserve the historical value of these communities and buildings while simultaneously redefining and renewing the spaces through design criteria better suited to a current understanding of urban development. Research on Gldani Microdistrict III analyzes the history of existing building fabric and strives to propose adaptations derived from precedent and novel solutions to achieve responses for emerging social trends. The documentation of one selected site and a proposal for adaptive reuse acts as a scalable driver for other sites facing the same issues. This work contends that the proper answer to the question of adaptation is by engaging in palimpsest, or the act of reusing/altering post-socialist spaces while ensuring that they bear visible traces of their earlier forms. Maintaining the context is part of the historic identity of the site and past programs; the alterations are required for continued use.
Soviet housing estates are the most prolific architectural typology in existence and this work expects to raise consciousness about the wide array of endangered Soviet sites that still exist throughout Eurasia to ensure that the challenges of utilizing such locations in a contemporary urban context are brought into the general knowledge of architectural education and practice.
Steve Almond
byDavidSim
