At first glance, modernism in Georgia seems to be the result of centralized planning and the embodiment of colonial practices in the Caucasus. However, Mariam Gegidze argues that we can see how the system of coloniality was undermined through the creative disobedience and subversive resistance of local actors.
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The Architekturzentrum Wien demonstrated as early as 2012, with its exhibition Soviet Modernism 1955–1991: Unknown Stories, that Soviet modernism is much more than endless prefabricated buildings, empty public spaces, and bizarre, futuristic monuments or those reduced to mere imagery. This research project stood out for its focus on the architecture of the non-Russian Soviet republics and its deliberate decision not to examine the architecture of Russia. In fact, the final phase of Soviet architecture in the so-called peripheral republics proves to be quite diverse. For, apart from the centralized political system, local and differentiated forms of modernity emerged within these peripheral regions – as was also the case in the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia.
In the Soviet Georgia, examples of local Soviet modernism emerged particularly from the 1970s onward. This particular blend of modernism is defined by its use of regional building traditions. This approach extends beyond formal language and is manifested through the expressive interweaving of the landscape and the built environment. It is also evident in the subtle staging of visual axes between interior and exterior spaces. What further connects these buildings, aside from their architectural language, is their construction history: Realizing them often required creative, unofficial, or even semi-legal approaches that circumvented the union-wide planning guidelines.
Nominal sovereignty under centralized oversight
The political-administrative system of the Soviet Union was highly centralized. Despite its formal status as a Union Republic, Georgia possessed no sovereignty over economic, social, or political matters. The operating principles established a strict hierarchy: every decision was made within a centralized structure in which direct subordination to the higher level was mandated. All institutions, organizations, and administrative bodies were subject to the guidance and control of the highest authorities. Planning and resource allocation remained closely tied to the power structures in Moscow. In effect, there was no political or economic leeway until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The extent of the actual exercise of power and oversight by the political and administrative center spanned the entire system – including the construction industry. The management of construction activities, the assessment of regional needs, architectural design, and, in some cases, cost planning was centralized and remained in the hands of the central authorities in Moscow. Various guidelines were developed and decisions made to oversee local departments; their purpose was, among other things, to indirectly monitor construction output in the individual republics and to grant central institutions the primary right to issue permits. Construction and investment projects were thus embedded in a highly regulated system of approval and planning procedures.
After Khrushchev’s ouster in October 1964, corruption and the shadow economy increased throughout the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev’s leadership – the so-called Golden Age of Stagnation began. According to architecture critic and journalist Wolfgang Kil, this period was characterized above all by the fact that national self-interest could awaken and generate centrifugal forces: Party decisions were one thing, but the networks of relationships (or rivalries) among local actors often brought about different outcomes. Officially, Georgia’s economy had already been posting one of the lowest growth rates in the USSR as early as the 1960s. In contrast, it boasted the highest savings and private profits within the Union – a discrepancy attributable to a thriving shadow economy whose capital flows eluded state monitoring. Alternative networks and informal practices served as a counterforce to central authority. In practice, this led to extralegal methods of resource allocation and planning activities that effectively eluded Moscow’s control.
From the law to the construction site
Cost caps were crucial to the regulated system of permitting and planning procedures. Thresholds were in place: above certain amounts, some construction projects formally required higher-level central approval, while smaller projects could be approved at the local level. Such a hierarchical structure between central and local jurisdictions not only reflected the structure of the Soviet planned economy but also represented the continuation of a colonial practice and the center-periphery dichotomy – and thus the coloniality of the Soviet Union’s political system. Within this framework, the so-called ‘three-million-ruble rule’ marked the strict boundary between local autonomy and central regulation.
All non-standardized, individual, or experimental projects with a budget exceeding three million rubles were subject to additional review and approval by central departments. However, as actual construction practices in the Soviet Republic of Georgia illustrate, alternative workarounds were developed to circumvent this exclusive decision-making power of the central authorities. Beginning in the 1960s, local actors systematically attempted to keep official construction costs effectively below the aforementioned upper limit. The main reason for this was the fear that the designs would either be rejected outright in Moscow or adapted to the all-Union architectural language through stylistic ‘corrections.’ With the goal of at least determining at the local level how construction could proceed, political authorities, ministries, and planning institutions organized themselves and sought individual scope for action outside the official regulations.
Beyond the norm: Strategies of creative disobedience
The constant uncertainty regarding central directives from the Union fostered creative improvisation on the ground. The central swimming pool complex – later named Laguna Vere – which was completed in 1978, as well as the main building of the Ministry of Road Construction, opened three years earlier, exemplify the specific character of Soviet Georgia’s modernism. Their completion required informal coordination between various local authorities as well as the systematic manipulation of construction costs – practices that have only come to light today through the accounts of those involved in the construction. These private accounts make it clear that the realization of these projects was only possible because people from different political or professional backgrounds acted together outside the official system. The skills and knowledge required to navigate the system through private connections while remaining invisible within the central surveillance system were shared across various professional levels.
The construction of Laguna Vere, which spanned over fifteen years, was constantly overshadowed by the fear that the authorities in Moscow would ban the project – as Vladimir Goiashvili, the director of the swimming pool complex, emphasized. In his account, he recalled several times that ‘heroic acts’ by individual participants were often necessary to carry out the intensive construction work. The actual construction costs of the facility exceeded three million rubles, and to save the complex from a ‘ban in Moscow,’ local government officials officially declared individual elements to be separate measures for the reconstruction of the surrounding square. According to Goiashvili, this is how the additional costs were covered.
The architects at the Ministry of Road Construction also recall the ‘three-million-ruble rule.’ When the building’s atypical shape became apparent, Moscow halted construction. Architect Giorgi Chakhava, who was also Deputy Minister of Road Construction, used his political position to avert the construction freeze in a personal conversation with the head of Gosstroy in Moscow. He argued from a purely technocratic standpoint: The central office should review material consumption, not the architecture. It becomes clear from his account that the actual reason for the construction freeze was not the construction costs but the architectural language. The actual construction costs for the ministry amounted to six million rubles. As the building’s second project architect, Zurab Jalaghania, recounted, accounting manipulations were carried out because there was no hope of obtaining approval. Thus, the budget was formally reduced to three million rubles, which the local Council of Ministers accepted. All departments of the ministry participated in the construction process and also provided various building materials.
Overcoming colonial practices
These two projects exemplify the political conflict surrounding the actual self-determination of the Soviet republic, which, on a formal level, possessed only nominal sovereignty. They illustrate that Soviet Georgia’s modernism, existing outside the Union’s colonial practices, is not only architecturally valuable but, above all, a significant historical document. The shared distrust of a practice heavily based on control sparked reactions that extended far beyond the field of construction and played a role in political self-determination.
Soviet Georgia’s modernism is thus not, as it might seem at first glance, to be understood as a product of centralist planning and an embodiment of colonial practice in the Caucasus, but rather as its overcoming. These buildings manifest an act by local actors to undermine the system of coloniality through creative disobedience and subversive resistance. Circumventing the three-million-ruble rule was therefore not merely corruption, but a necessary strategy of self-assertion. In this sense, the architecture of that era marks the point at which informal practices effectively rendered the hierarchical structures of the Soviet Union null and void.
By mastering the language of bureaucracy while simultaneously subverting its rules, those involved transformed the construction process into an active response to external pressure to conform. In this respect, it represents far more than just a phase of externally directed architecture; it is a medium of resilience. In this interpretation, the built environment appears not as a monument to the Soviet era, but as an instrument through which political self-assertion manifested itself spatially.
Note from the editors: This article draws on the author’s dissertation “Laguna Vere. Swimming in Archives” (Bauhaus University Weimar, 2026).