Moving (to) Georgia

Preface - Markus Tomaselli

Since my private visit to Georgia in 2010 I had the idea to organize an excursion to the Caucasus with students from the Institute of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture of the TU Wien. The hospitality I experienced as well as the beauty of the natural and built environment triggered further curiosity and interest. All the incredible monuments of Soviet modernism in this region, the extraordinary beauty and the rapid development of the urban landscape, especially of Tbilisi seemed worth visiting and studying.

In June 2017, we received an invitation of the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) to contribute to their project for the new Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system in Tbilisi. Katja Schechtner, guest professor at the TU Wien at that time, who had previously worked for the AIT, associated us with research engineer Gernot Lenz and senior scientist Stefan Scheer, Davit Asanidze from the urban planning department of Tbilisi, and colleagues from the Technical University in Tbilisi as well as the Academy of Arts. Thanks to their support and the help of many local colleagues and friends, we could organize two excursions in 2017 and 2018, leading us to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Our first design studio focused on the Didube metro and bus hub, one of the major stops of the new BRT line in the north of Tbilisi and the second one on the Samgori market in the south, the transfer site for many agricultural products. While working in Tbilisi, the TU Georgia as well as the Academy generously hosted us and offered all kinds of support needed. Moreover, they helped us to understand the com- plexity of the formal and informal structures and infrastructures of Tbilisi. The Austrian ambassador in Tbilisi, Arad Benkö, kindly invited us to his residence, providing recent geopolitical and economic information about Georgia. This information allowed us to carry out the urban design projects which are presented in this brochure. Didube, besides being an important transport hub in Tbilisi, is also surrounded by large brownfields, most of them embedded within the consolidated city fabric. Taking into consideration this huge potential for urban transformation in central areas of the city, Tbilisi can become a totally different urban structure by renewing these spatial resources. Our projects therefore also include some of these potentials around Didube, to embed the new infrastructure in a newly created and liveable urban environment.

Samgori, besides being another transport hub in Tbilisi, also provides local economy on site, such as different types of markets and services. It was among the main goals in all the proposals to maintain these facilities. Our major interests are urban development and transformation processes of areas that require detailed ex- aminations and research. Dealing with brownfield redevelopment as well as the im- plementation of infrastructure, our aim is interaction through collaborative research with local communities and authorities as well as local universities to exchange ideas and visions. Our projects in Tbilisi follow a long series of discoveries all over the world. In the past 15 years we have, among others, worked in the Ukraine, Brazil, the USA, the Philippines, and Bulgaria. May this small publication help to continue our cooperation with Georgia.