Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze stated that the capital’s city hall has not received any official appeals from the Italian architectural firm Studio Fuksas, which had previously reported that it repeatedly proposed to the Georgian authorities to jointly find an alternative to dismantling the so-called “Rike jars.”
“No letter has been received. If an appeal had been received, the relevant municipal services would have certainly responded to it…
Regarding the issue of the so-called ‘Rike jars,’ the decision has already been made. It was an absolutely non-functional structure. Spending tens of millions of lari on this project at the time was an unjustified step. Now the building belongs to a private owner, and they are the one who made the decision. The municipality and the authorities have nothing to do with this,” Kaladze emphasized.
He noted that the project’s authors could negotiate directly with the owner of the property regarding its possible relocation or future use.
At the same time, the mayor explained that the city authorities only considered the issue of issuing a demolition permit.
“Without permission from the architectural service of the Tbilisi City Hall, such work is impossible. The decision to demolish was made jointly with the Council for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. The City Hall issued a demolition permit, and what kind of business the private owner will conduct is not within our competence,” Kaladze said.
Earlier, the architectural firm Studio Fuksas, the designer of the “Rike jars” project, issued a statement calling their demolition “a serious step backward in cultural terms.” The company reported that over the past few months, it had repeatedly proposed to the Georgian government to jointly find a way to preserve the landmark structure and give it a new function; however, according to the architects, their proposals remained unanswered. In addition, the firm warned that the loss of a globally recognized and award-winning architectural object would be an irreparable cultural loss.
