The “Rike Tubes,” a pair of modern cylindrical glass-and-metal structures in downtown Tbilisi’s Rike Park built during the final years of the previous United National Movement (UNM) government, are being demolished after Tbilisi City Hall confirmed in July that it had issued a permit to their owner, Rike Dom, which plans to build a hotel on the site.
The plans have drawn criticism from government opponents and architects, who have called for the distinctive structures, which have stood largely idle for years, to be preserved or relocated. Despite the calls, demolition works began at the end of July.
“I am not an architect, but I think this ugliness does not suit our beautiful capital,” Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told reporters on the Rike Tubes in May.
The Tbilisi Auditorium, commonly known as the Rike Tubes or “Rikis Doqebi” in Georgian due to their resemblance to doqi, a traditional clay wine-serving jug, was designed in 2010 by Italian architects Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas and completed during the final years of UNM rule (2004-2012).
The buildings were intended to serve as a classical music concert hall and host exhibitions. However, after the change of government in 2012, interior works were never completed, leaving the structures largely unused. Their construction reportedly cost around GEL 75 million (about USD 29 million at the current exchange rate) in public funds.
The Fuksas architects expressed “deep regret” over the planned demolition, saying they “offered to work with the Georgian authorities to explore alternative solutions that could preserve and repurpose this iconic building, avoiding what we believe would be a premature and irreversible demolition.” However, the architects said their proposals had received “no response.”
Despite calls to halt the process or relocate the structures from Rike Park to another location, including elsewhere in Georgia, the works have already begun and are expected to be completed by the end of December. Rike Dom, the company that owns the structures, plans to build a hotel on the site, although details of the project have not been made public.
The demolition of the Rike Tubes comes as other distinctive buildings constructed during the UNM rule have recently been repurposed after remaining largely unused for years.
Among them is the Ceremonial Palace on Tbilisi’s Avlabari hill, overlooking the Rike Tubes. The building, which once housed the presidential administration, was reported in June to become the new home of the Foreign Ministry.
In July, authorities also inaugurated a technology hub in the former parliament building in Kutaisi, a distinctive oval-shaped glass-and-metal structure.
While some local architects argue that the Rike Tubes distorted Tbilisi’s historic panorama and the surrounding historic neighborhood and should not have been built in their current location, they also oppose their demolition.
“Just as building the Rike Tubes was a mistake at the time, demolishing them now is also a mistake,” Irakli Rostomashvili, Tbilisi’s chief architect in 2002-2004, said, stressing that the underlying problem was that “in a city of 1.5 million people, nobody asked anyone anything.”
“If the structure is to be demolished today, I believe the process should involve the public — with society deciding what should happen and how,” he added.
