Angela Wheeler

 

In recent years, many Georgians and international observers have become increasingly concerned about changes to Tbilisi’s historic landscape. In many cases, their concern is warranted: Tbilisi Historic District remained on the World Monument Fund’s list of the top 100 Most Endangered Sites from 1997-2002. In 2001, Tbilisi Historic District was deferred from inclusion on the UNESCO world heritage list, “subject to the establishment of adequate legal framework, management structures and guidelines for the rehabilitation and restoration and control of change in the proposed nominated area.”

Today, Tbilisi is not even under consideration for inclusion, due to rampant demolition and modification in the proposed historic district. Local historians and NGOs estimate that about 1/3 of the city’s pre-existing historic fabric has been destroyed over the last decade, and yet the resulting development did not bring about a corresponding increase in quality of life for longtime Old Tbilisi residents.

Both professionals and the public have been slow to recognize the value of the “vernacular” (or “common” architecture—everyday houses, tenements, or shops), which comprises the majority of Tbilisi’s historic fabric. There are, however, many distinct benefits to conserving historic architecture, even if it is not “monumental” or “elite.” Well-managed heritage buildings and sites: 

• Represent the identity and achievements of a social group, and convey diverse messages and values (historical, social, political, scientific, religious, etc) that contribute meaning to people’s lives. The architectural environment in particular reminds us that every people has both given something to and taken something from another culture. As such, historic buildings are vehicles for understanding the diversity of people and for developing mutual peace and comprehension.
• Are an excellent local educational resource for people of all ages.
• Attract tourists. Well-managed heritage areas with appropriate tourist infrastructure are informative, help visitors appreciate the history and culture of the area, and provide for their needs without crowding local residents.
• Lead to economic development. Heritage is not just about tourism. Only approximately 5% of rehabilitated buildings end up as profitable tourist attractions. Tourism is an inherently volatile industry, but heritage-based tourism means that local assets are preserved for local citizens even in economic downturns, unlike a theme park, resort, or upscale shopping complex. There is no better way to maintain, understand, and appreciate a local culture than the ongoing, evolving use of that community’s historic resources.
• Create local jobs. The labor-intensive process of rehabilitating older buildings requires a lot of local labor, as opposed to new construction, which requires a lot of (often imported) building materials. So a million dollars in restoration funds will create more jobs and add more to local household income than will a million dollars in new construction. The wages stay in the community, supporting local businesses and significantly increasing household incomes.
• Save land and help check sprawl. No new land is consumed when a historic building is renovated. Additionally, renovation does not produce as much waste as demolition and reconstruction, and important consideration given that construction debris consumes about one quarter of landfill space worldwide, much of it from demolition.
• Support sustainability through adaptive re-use. Preservation represents a full and complete concern about sustainability in every dimension–including land use, embodied energy, urban systems, etc. From that standpoint, preservation is absolutely the most sustainable process available.
• Are unique and irreplaceable. Like much of the natural environment, they represent non-renewable resources. Once a historic structure or site is destroyed, it cannot be resurrected. 

Essentially, architectural heritage conservation should be integrated into economic development plans as a tool used to help communities succeed in the globalized economy, without succumbing to a globalized mono-culture. While there are many potential benefits of economic globalization, there aren’t many benefits to a globalized culture—people often refer to Westernization, Americanization, McDonaldization, or in the case of preservation, Disneyfication. Effectively preserved heritage sites are not a backwards-looking economic hindrance, but an asset that still reflects local values.

There are four treatment approaches for historic architecture officially recognized by the Secretary of the Interior in the US, and these standards also generally hold true for other national and international organizations. These are listed in what is considered hierarchical order, because heritage philosophy places the highest value on buildings with the most original material intact:

• Preservation (known as “conservation” outside the US), places a high premium on the retention of all historic fabric through conservation, maintenance and repair. It reflects a building’s continuum over time, through successive occupancies, and the respectful changes and alterations that are made. It basically involves “freezing” a building as it is.
• Rehabilitation, the second treatment, emphasizes the retention and repair of historic materials, but more latitude is provided for replacement because it is assumed the property is more deteriorated prior to work. Both preservation and rehabilitation standards focus attention on the preservation of those materials, features, finishes, spaces, and spatial relationships that, together, give a property its historic character. Rehabilitation is often more appropriate for structures that will serve as homes or businesses, as it is necessary to add modern conveniences.
• Restoration, the third treatment, focuses on the retention of materials from what is interpreted as the most significant time in a property’s history, while permitting the removal of materials from other periods.
• Reconstruction, the fourth treatment, establishes limited opportunities to re-create a non-surviving site, landscape, building, structure, or object in all new materials. A reconstruction is not considered to have the same value as the original, although it must be as faithful to the original as possible–materials and features must be drawn from historical sources at all times, not imaginatively re-created.

Choosing the most appropriate treatment for a building requires careful decision-making about a building’s historical significance, as well taking into account a number of other considerations, such as the its relative importance in history, physical condition, and proposed use.

Rehabilitation is often the most appropriate treatment for vernacular structures in Tbilisi. Although functional, many buildings feature several elements deteriorated to the extent that more replacement is called for than would be acceptable with preservation. Rehabilitation also allows more freedom for adaptive re-use, as long as the new use respects the defining features of the building. Below are some guidelines that must be taken into consideration throughout a successful rehabilitation:

• Whenever possible, it is recommended to repair rather than replace deteriorated historic elements. When replacement is necessary, new materials should match the old as closely as possible in design, composition, and color.
• Changes can be contemporary in design and sometimes challenging in their visual impact, as long as they respect the heritage assets. Compatible, contemporary alterations are acceptable if they do not destroy significant historic and architectural fabric, overwhelm, or obstruct the building.
• When rehabilitating a structure, document its condition before, throughout, and after treatment. Documentation is vitally important for heritage planning–it allows policymakers to determine which districts have the most architecturally and/or historically significant buildings, planners to keep track of their physical condition, and researchers (as well as the general public) to learn about a building’s features and history.
• Recognize that all buildings are physical products of their time. Avoid changes that may create a false sense of historic development–a respectful modern design is better than a falsely historical one. Respect and retain changes to the property that have occurred over time and have acquired significance in their own right.
• When possible, make every effort to use a building for its original purpose-but if you can’t, make sure the new use requires minimal change to its historic features.
• Historical elements are not just confined to the façade of a building—interior floor plans and details are often much more important than the façade, because these elements are what defined the building’s original use
• A restored building is literally useless if it doesn’t address the community’s needs. Stakeholders must be involved, as those who will be affected by a decision deserve the right to participate in it. Regulations often provide for the rights of citizens to obtain information on development plans, procedures and deadlines for submitting proposals (which after being broadcast on the mass media, are limited to a few months), citizen representative quotas at each level of decision-making concerning urban development, legal sanctions such as compensation for citizens whose rights were violated by the implementation of a certain project.

Today, there are many problems facing the proper conservation of Tbilisi’s urban heritage, deriving from Georgia’s social, economic, and political legacies, as well as the effects of more recent policies:

• Public apathy. As in many post-socialist societies, local residents have become “demobilized” and have neither the desire nor the structures necessary to participate in collaborative efforts. —
• Ongoing lack of transparency regarding municipal projects and policies, which stifles the development of civil society. Although a national law passed in 2005 mandated that “All interested individuals shall have the right to participate in public reviews of planning documents at all stages of their formulation, development, review and approval,” in June 2009, Tbilisi Sakrebulo (City Council) reviewed and adopted Tbilisi Land Use Plan without allowing any public participation.
• Absence of clear, comprehensive objectives in urban planning. The Tbilisi Land Use Plan is currently the only plan in use at all–Tbilisi’s last Master Plan expired years ago.
• The nature of Tbilisi vernacular architecture itself: most dwellings in Tbilisi are interconnected, and many of them feature ambiguous shared spaces–courtyards, balconies, external stairways, storage sheds, etc.–most of which were haphazardly privatized in the 1990s and still subject to contested ownership. So in order for a project to take place, not only do all residents of one building have to agree, but it is often necessary to get all of their neighbors to agree as well.
• Socioeconomic conditions in Tbilisi historic districts–many of the old houses are overcrowded, have outdated (and even shared) facilities, and are inhabited by those who are “socially vulnerable,” like pensioners, who can only afford the most necessary repairs.
• Property abandonment is fairly common–historic property owners have been known to move to new apartments elsewhere in the city, and put their old house up on the market. In the meantime, the property essentially sits abandoned–unmaintained and frequently targeted for vandalism.
• There are no developers or construction companies in Tbilisi that specialize in historic architecture rehabilitation–even though dozens of students at Tbilisi Art Academy’s Conservation Institute are trained in varies types of materials conservation and repair every year. The vast majority of “renovation” projects never even consult a preservation specialist at any point during planning or implementation.
• Gutting and facadism (known in the US as “Halloween preservation”) is rampant in Tbilisi, as are imaginative “additions” that have nothing to do with local architectural traditions or with the individual building’s historic appearance. Facadism, when a building is basically demolished but for the outer shell, is considered the worst of both worlds: nothing is really preserved, and yet the developer is still encumbered with the extraordinary cost of removing an entire building behind the skin and pasting it back on again.
• Developers also have little respect for scale, and the “slap two more floors on” attitude has predominated renovation projects in Tbilisi since the 1990s. Additional floors block views and sunlight (particularly in the many courtyard houses of Tbilisi), disrupt historic landscapes, and put strain on older structures that they were not intended to withstand–particularly dangerous in an earthquake zone.
• Heritage districts and listing do not offer consistent protection. Also, because gutting is considered an acceptable preservation treatment, the best a building can hope for is gutting, the worst demolition. There have also been cases in which historic buildings were completely demolished and rebuilt–but the rebuilt structure remains on heritage lists.
• The Saakashvili administration has made attraction of foreign investment one of its top priorities. This means there is a lot of pressure to de-list buildings and sell them off for new development. Many buildings are left to rot. As a result, it seems that City Hall’s primary property management goal is demolition by neglect.
• There is no standardized documentation program in Georgia, although documentation is occasionally undertaken by individual historians or NGOs. As of 2012, there is no uniform or readily accessible source of architectural information.
• Weak enforcement of construction violation penalties. Penalties are inconsistently enforced, can be “worked around,” or may simply be ineffective in and of themselves.
• There is almost no collaboration between developers, preservation professionals, and urban planners. There has yet to be any program or project in Georgia that involved productive collaboration between the various groups (political, business, public) necessary to promote economic development while preserving architectural heritage.
• Tbilisi experiences regular earthquakes, which is particular threat to under-maintained historic structures.
• Georgia did not experience the arts and crafts movement that profoundly informs Western views of authenticity today. As it is practiced in Western Europe and the US, historic preservation puts a premium on authenticity–one of the guiding principles is that the original historic fabric must be preserved whenever possible.

I would propose the following changes to heritage management in Tbilisi, in order to ensure that more buildings are preserved and that the benefits of preservation are felt by local communities:

• Rehabilitation of registered historic buildings must be carried out, or at least supervised by, conservation specialists.
• Registered historic buildings must be fully documented (interior/exterior defining features) before and after rehabilitation/alteration. All documentation must be publicly accessible.
• Prerequisites to façade renovation should include roof repair and basement dehumidification. There is no point in repairing an exterior if structural problems will eventually make the building unusuable.
• Construction regulations must be clear, effective, and enforced.
• Policies must be transparent. City Hall’s approach to 21st century urban planning and heritage management is about as transparent as it was under Khrushchev, making the public even more likely to become frustrated and not participate.
• Feasibility studies based on social surveys and stakeholder meetings must be carried out before a project is implemented to determine potential conflicts of interest.
• District and neighborhood homeowners unions must be formed, through which the public can express its needs and concerns. These unions have veto power on projects–not just City Hall, selected developers, and the few who can afford to pay for legal support.
• Projects need to be implemented by district or neighborhood, not by the entire city. Each district has its own unique socioeconomic issues and development goals.
• Listed buildings must be provided with maintenance schedules based on documentation. Preservation is often too much reaction and not enough prevention. Maintenance will not only protect Tbilisi’s historic structures, but it will provide regular work for construction workers, engineers, and other specialists.
• Most importantly, Tbilisi needs a new Master Plan–the product of multidisciplinary collaboration. The current Land Use Plan (2009) was approved with no public input, and is rarely even followed. Without any clear development goals, the city cannot prepare to effectively meet the needs of residents, foreign investors, and tourists. The new Master Plan must include heritage management as part of economic development, rather than as an opposing force.

 

Sources

1. “Betlemi Quarter Revitalisation: Programme Report, 2000-2010.” ICOMOS, 2011.
2. “Rehabbing the Right Way: 10 Basic Principles to Keep in Mind When Rehabilitating a Historic Building.” National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2012.
3. Proceedings, International Conference on Community and Historic Environment. ICOMOS, 2011.
4. Proceedings, Conference on Careful Renovation of the Old City [Tbilisi] and Civil Society. Goethe Institute Georgia, 2009.
5. Rypkema, Donovan. “The Economic Power of Restoration.” 2001.
6. Rypkema, Donovan. “Historic Preservation and Affordable Housing: the Missed Connection.” NPS, 2002.