The City and the Tower

The Hotel Iveria in the heart of Tbilisi, built in 1967, is an icon of modern architecture in Georgia. The tallest building in the city when it was completed, the 20-story hotel had a blue-green stone facade, a novelty at the time. Situated on a plateau above the Kura River, it added an urban ensemble along Rustaveli Avenue and near the old city. 

In the 90s the VIPs of the Soviet era were substituted by Abkhazian IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons). The hotel became an emergency shelter and life spilled out. The hotel’s dwellers remained in a transitional state for eleven years. Caught in limbo, they were unable to return home and yet not fully integrated into the city. In their sojourn, the refugees adapted it to their needs: balconies turned into rooms; walls made of wooden planks or blue plastic marked the attempt to make this home personal.

At the turn of the century, the Georgian government under Micheil Saakashvili sold the hotel to the Silk Road Group. In 2006, GRAFT Architects from Berlin turned the iconic Hotel Iveria into a relatively banal Radisson Hotel. Now, more than a dozen years later, its history takes on new relevance because of the Ukraine war.

“How do architecture and the city react to political crises?” and “Under what circumstances does architecture shift from active to passive bearers of meaning?” are two rhetorical questions that an exhibition opening at Architektur Galerie Berlin raises. It is intended to “contribute to a better understanding of the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union.” For the exhibition, curator Irina Kurtishvili gathered artifacts from the hotel, including the original floor plans, old postcards, books, and records. This collection is complemented by works by artists and photographers who interpret the history of the hotel.