Georgia’s unique architecture celebrated at Vienna exhibition

A unique example of Soviet-era Georgian architecture is in focus at an international exhibition on cross-cultural urban creativity in Austria's capital Vienna.

The Bank of Georgia head office in Tbilisi, built 40 years ago initially to serve as Georgia's Department for Automobile Roads, is being shown as a scale mockup at the Architecture at the Intersection of Continents exhibition.

The uniquely shaped building was home to offices of Georgia's Department for Automobile Roads before it was acquired by Bank of Georgia in 2007. Photo from www.hq.ge.

The exhibition opened on March 10 and "profiles Georgia’s architectural heritage" with emphasis on Tbilisi's "diverse architectural landscape and history from the end of the 19th century to the present day".

Based on a concept by curator Adolph Stiller, the exhibition at Vienna's Exhibition Centre in the Ringturm also features up to 50 photographs of other examples of historic and modern Georgian architecture.

The architectural exhibition in Vienna featured examples of 20th Century Tbilisi architecture including these residential building on Marjanishvili Square. Photo by the Georgian Union of Architects/www.picturedesk.com.

The uniquely shaped home to Bank of Georgia offices, created by Georgian architects Guram Jalaghania and Giorgi Chakhava in 1975, is now one of most recognised examples of 20th Century architecture in Georgia's capital.

The New York Timesmagazine called the building a "gem" of the Soviet urban development style in its 2007 article.

It also was reviewed in Italian architecture magazine Domus in 1977 and the New York Museum of Art publication Transformations in Modern Architecture in 1981.

The building's two architects were awarded the USSR Council of Ministers Prize for the building in 1980.

The exhibition in Vienna will run until April 27, 2016.