Ministry of Highways

Once described as 'Italy gone Marxist,' Georgia, located on the Black Sea, enjoys a sun-soaked Mediterranean climate in combination with a community-oriented and self-determined spirit. Its recent architectural history both informal and vernacular but also sanguinely futurist reveals the uncanny progressive potential of a place where the past is neither monumentalized nor destroyed, but built upon. This palimpsestic legacy embodied in the stunning Ministry of Highways (1975) government complex in Tbilisi is explored in this whimsical guidebook to the hilly Georgian capital. With contributions from Ruben Arevshatyan, Didier Faustino, Yona Friedman, Lali Pertenava, Marjetica Potrc, Richard Reynolds, Slavs and Tatars, Jan Verwoert and others.