ვისაც გული შეგტკივათ საქართველოში განვიტარებულ არქიტექტურულ მოვლენებზე, შემოგვიერთდით ფეისბუქზე. Anti-ტექტურა
ეს კიდევ სტატია, თუ რას წერს ცნობილი არქიტექტურული ჟურნალი architectural Review საქართველოზე.
View From... Tbilisi, GeorgiaInvestment has poured into Tbilisi since the AR first highlighted the city’s perilous architectural state a year ago. But now the thirst for progress risks destroying the city’s historic character
Over the last year, Georgia and its ancient capital, Tbilisi, have been undergoing a reconstruction unparalleled since the height of the Soviet era. Under the guidance of city hall planners, a project called New Life for Old Tbilisi is readying for its second phase. Set under the stone ramparts of the 4th-century Narikala fortress, the Old Town’s winding ‘Asian’ streets, sagging wooden balconies, pepper pot-roofed churches and Art Nouveau facades are at one with fleets of mini-bulldozers, miles of scaffolding, lifted road surfaces and shopkeepers doing business amid construction teams.
Recently, one of Britain’s leading conservationists remarked that the Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue rebuild alone (almost a kilometre in length) was the largest single renovation project she had ever witnessed. Every building is being repainted or re-fronted, right down to - and including - the pavements and road surface.
But this is only a part of what is planned for Georgia. The broad brush of reconstruction extends across the nation from the port of Batumi on the Black Sea coast − witness to a new growth of glass and steel towers − up into remote regions such as Mestia, a mountain community of about 2,500 in Svaneti surrounded by glaciers and 5,000m peaks. There, the decrepit Soviet-era facades are being boldly upholstered in local stone or wood, with wooden balconies against a backdrop of 12th-century stone towers redolent of San Gimignano in Italy or Greece’s Mani region.
The developments are part of a large, government-sponsored reconstruction drive overseen by the country’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili. The aim is to propel the country into the 21st century, offer work for a large population of unemployed and revitalise the districts, particularly for tourism (Georgia’s hope for the future).
While the majority of the Georgian population looks on with a kind of shrugging approval − save for some vociferous members of the intelligentsia − the speed and methodology of the reconstruction has alarmed a number of international observers, who feel that the nation’s towns and cities are losing their historic character.
For instance, in Tbilisi’s Kala district, the usual technique is to knock down the original building then to reconstruct it around a reinforced concrete shell re-faced by old bricks, in a rough approximation of its former self. The structures usually carry an extra floor, often topped mansard-style by uniform roofs made from cheap Turkish tiles.
In contrast, nearby church reconstructions initiated by the Georgian Patriarch’s office re-use traditional stone and roof tiles wherever possible. This creates cheek-by-jowl examples of ‘how to’ and ‘how not to’ restoration.
The eradication of historic material in Georgia is happening so rapidly that UNESCO demoted Bagrati and Mtskheta Cathedrals, two of Georgia’s three World Heritage Sites, to its endangered list. At the same time, local architects and art historians are trying to educate citizens to favour refurbishment, rather than reconstruction of homes.
Last year, the British Council, Goethe Institute and local EU office sponsored a conference to tackle this problem and in September 2011, the Georgian office of the International Council on Monuments and Sites hosted a three-day event on Community and the Historic Environment.
The gathering attracted eminent international specialists on conservation but only one representative from Tbilisi City Hall, inundated with questions from concerned locals. As calls for inward investment continue, it is to be hoped the second phase of ‘new life’ for Tbilisi’s Old Town will be more effective in allowing its historic quality to live on.
http://www.architectural-review.com/view/v...8621625.article 
თანამედროვე არქიტექტურა, II ნაწილი
