Engineered Art

By Rutvi Ashar

Photography: Courtesy Studio Fuksas

Read Time: 2 mins

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Award winning Studio Fuksas has designed and is close to completing a 566 seater music theatre and exhibition hall for the Tbilisi Development Fund; a space where engineering meets art and reaches the climax of true architecture!

Conceptualised by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas at the 40 year old Studio Fuksas, The Musical Theatre and the Exhibition Hall in Tbilisi, Georgia is a two winged purely dynamic structure that acts as a perfect foreground to the colonial structures towards its rear and a sort of continuation to the fluid glass bridge towards its entry. This hall can be added to a list of silver stainless steel marvels namely The Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Bilbao Museum both similar in terms of vocabulary as well as finishes.

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The horizontally spread out spaces work well functionally but what makes this engineered wonder click is its setting. A site which is substantially lower than those around it allows for the structure to vertically fill the gap, stand out and yet not over power its heritage surroundings. In a world competing for stand out exterior finishes, this project employs stainless steel panels and glass that is double glazed and supported by a strong triad grid. Bringing this grid into the entrance canopy is a remarkable architectural decision as opposed to hiding the structural members.  

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The two periscope wings of this public space take into account the volume of people it caters to by the simple alignment of the funnels giving rise to a large landscaped open area in the centre that can be used pre and post events. The views of the waterfront seep into the interior spaces through the glass walls; although, providing only a single outlet on the face is probably a functional rather than a spatial consideration.

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All in all, the structure captures fluidic art, exemplary engineering and suitable architectural decisions in a history town of Tbilisi, showcasing the old through the new.