LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR TBILISI ... - LED

In order to turn the city facade to the river Mtkvari the arrangement of
embankments and, in some places, cutting into the river Mtkvari with green areas was
also planned.As for the “Old Tbilisi”, the “Socialistic Reconstruction” practically meant its
elimination.
It must be mentioned that implementation of the plan of 1934 was stopped by the
beginning of World War II; but some fragments of this plan were soon realized – forest
planting on Tiflis trench slopes; limitation of the Mtkvari bed in the concrete dams and the
arrangement of the embankments; cultivation of new gardens and parks; solution of such
important city planning knot as the Heroes’ Square, the construction of the Circus Hill, the
arrangement of Cheluskinelebi (today the Tamar the Queen street) bridge and street, etc.
After the war, basically, the already begun and planned constructions were continued –
the second row of Governmental House, building of Tea Thrift Trust (today the
Intercontinental hotel), building of Coal Industrial Trust on Zemeli, etc.
“Khrushchev thaw” acquired a powerful impulse to the spatial development of
Tbilisi in the second half of the 1950s. As a result of housing construction introduced in the
peripheral zones, communal flats were partly eliminated; housing stock structure met the
needs of the demographic structure (“one flat – one family”). New housing policy required
assimilation of new space; as a result of considering land as an non-economic category
the extensive forms of city development were introduced, basically by acquiring rural
areas.
Such tendency became significantly stronger under the conditions of developing
The Third General Plan of Tbilisi. “The General Plan of Tbilisi Reconstruction and
Development” was passed in 1970 and it fully reflected the ideology of a Soviet city
planning dominating at that time. In this case among the components of the ideology
several are essential:
o Considering Tbilisi as self-content, autonomous settlement;
o Principle of locked labor balance;
o Neglecting the agglomeration (metropolitan area) realities;
o Territorial expansion;
o
o
Extensiveness of planning;
Hard vertical subordination of territorial units in the settlement system (cityouter
district (suburbs) zone), etc.
As a result, planners were forced to think within the frame of expanded
administrative boarders of Tbilisi. On the contrary to the linear nature of the capital, a form
of “ring-shaped roll” around Tbilisi Water Reservoir, of spatial development was proposed
in the new general plan. Such kind of priority naturally caused generation of new,
latitudinal directions in the development of Tbilisi city center.
Tbilisi center continued its linear development; its basic axis was again up to the
river Mtkvari; the linear center was formed in the following configuration: Freedom Square
– Rustaveli Avenue – Merab Kostava Street in two directions – with branches to Vake and
Saburtalo and tied by means of newly built road of Vake-Saburtalo. Parallel growth of the
city center was observed by passing David the Builder Prospect into Didube, Akaki
Tsereteli Prospect.
Simultaneously to this leading tendency of Tbilisi center the second, specific
direction – returning certain functions to “Old Tbilisi” – is being gradually developed
basically, in the way of reconstruction and adaptation of historically formed urban
environment. This trend was conceived in the 70ies of the 20th century, when for the first
time in Tbilisi conditions the State Defense Zone of the Old City (1975), was introduced
which was developed later and acquired three part structure – State (strict) Defense Zone,
Development Regulating Zone and Natural Landscape Protection Zone (1985).
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