New York expo shines spotlight on Soviet Georgian architecture

One of America’s leading universities is hosting a month-long photographic display dedicated to the legacy of Soviet Georgian architecture.

Aiming to explore the individuality of the Georgian building style from the era of prefabricated Soviet architecture, the exhibition will open this week at Columbia University's Harriman Institute in New York.

Starting September 15, photographs by Columbia University graduate Angela Wheeler and Georgian-American photographer Vladimer Shioshvili will be on display at the Harriman Institute Atrium.

The exhibition is titled Beyond the Ruin: Soviet Georgian Architecture in Context and seeks to examine the "cultural legacy of Georgian architecture in the late Soviet period," said organisers.

A Tbilisi wedding house building designed by Victor Jorbenadze in 1984. Photo from Vladimer Shioshvili.

[Georgian Soviet buildings] are, at first glance, the wrong buildings in the wrong places at the wrong time: custom designs in the age of prefabrication, Soviet celebrations of Georgian national heritage, cultural innovations in an era remembered largely for inertia," read Columbia University 's preview  for the exhibition.

Another goal of the photographic display was to highlight Soviet architecture as a "lived reality" and provide historical context often missing from recent trends of architectural photography that focus solely on the aesthetics of neglected Soviet-era locations. 

Wheeler and Shioshvili teamed up in 2015 to photograph Soviet architecture for the former's thesis on 20th Century Georgian architect Victor Jorbenadze, whose works can be found in Georgia's capital Tbilisi.

During the course of their collaboration, Shioshvili – who documents street art and urban transformation in the city – and Wheeler visited and photographed over 60 examples of Soviet building style.

Earlier this year examples of Soviet Georgian architecture were displayed in the exhibition Architecture at the Intersection of Continents in Austria's capital Vienna.

More details on the exhibition Beyond the Ruin: Soviet Georgian Architecture in Context can be found here.