currently Bank of Georgia Headquarters

location: 41.736012115536326, 44.77105959020134

architects: Giorgi Chakhava, Zurab Jalaghania

date: 1972–1975

The photographs were provided by Pavel Ogorodnikov, who explores abandoned places in Georgia (IG: @pavelog) and curates an archive of Georgian mosaics (IG: @georgian_mosaic).

In 1967, the Council of Ministers of the Georgian SSR accepted the construction of a new administrative building for the Ministry of Automobile Roads. Its development was inscribed to the architect Giorgi Chakhava, who was Deputy Chief Architect at the Georgian branch of USSR automobile transport government between 1967 and 1969, and deputy Minister in a new-organized Ministery of Automobile Roads of Georgian SSR afterwards. Chakhava was interested in the idea of working with complicated terrain, so a steep enough slope between Gagarin Street and Kura bank on the bank of Mktvari River with the height difference of 33 meters was chosen to locate the building.

The final steel and reinforced concrete structure is a monumental grid of interlocking parallelepipeds. There are five horizontal 2-story sections that appear to be stacked like a LEGO constructor. They rest on and hang from three vertical cores that also house vertical circulation elements such as stairs and elevators. Entrances are located at the top and bottom of the building. The tallest core of the structure rises 18 stories and has a total area of 10,960 square meters.

In this building, one could find references to several earlier architectural ideas, such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture presented in his famous Fallinghouse, El Lissitzky’s avant-garde designs of horizontal skyscrapers, the elevation of a building above ground based on the principle of reinforced concrete columns proposed by Le Corbusier, etc.

The building attracted attention both inside and outside the USSR. In 1980, the it was awarded the USSR Council of Ministers Prize. However, the building was abandoned from 2000 until 2007, when it was purchased by the Bank of Georgia to house its headquarters. In the same year the building received the status of a monument of immovable cultural heritage. In 2010-2011, the exterior and interior of the building were renovated and a new main entrance and underground lobby were added.

text by Elena Lisitsyna

photos by Pavel Ogorodnikov