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Tbilisi City Forum - the curation of an agonistic arena aims to facilitate a democratic, progressive urbanism.

The Agonistic City

By Benjamin Wells

The Agonistic City is an attempt to redesign processes of urbanism in Tbilisi, through proposing an architecture which facilitates city making as a collective, democratic endeavor. Its focus is a disused power station in the centre of the city, which is transformed into an active organization where the evolving project of the city can be revealed, shared, challenged and reimagined.

Georgia’s young democracy has been consistently undermined by many economic, political and territorial pressures, creating a context where real political engagement is often negated by representational democracy and consensus through administration. This suppresses meaningful citizen participation, and the potential for a political urbanism is in conflict with the generalizing tendencies of unrestricted urbanization. Whilst this trend can be observed globally, its impact on Tbilisi’s urban fabric has been particularly intense, and the city is now struggling to cope with its effects. 

This has led to a polarity of responses; the masterplanning of the state with its symbolic reconstruction projects, and the particularity of activist and research groups reacting to isolated urban issues. Whilst there is a high level of antagonism within this field of actors, there is no space for this conflict to be negotiated, resolved or utilized. This suppressed conflict has led to a kind of urban standoff, with a struggling city hall, disillusioned citizens and exhausted activists allowing the power of investor led development to continue business as usual.

The project challenges the current processes of governance in Tbilisi by providing the infrastructure for a strategic and conflictual urbanism to evolve. Conflict here is considered to be intrinsic to democratic society, yet sits in opposition to the consensus encouraged in Tbilisi’s post-political context. The re-politicizing of urbanism is dependent on the provision of an agonistic arena where differences can be confronted and channelled into productive outcomes - here lies the project of architecture. 

The proposed organization aims to bring together a multiplicity of voices into a place of negotiation, with knowledge, research and debate emerging as the primary foundations of the organization. The centre facilitates the curation of ideas for the city through workspaces for urban actors, and a range of discursive spaces allow these issues to be negotiated, debated and then acted upon, before being presented to a wider public. By connecting a diverse network of stakeholders, the project aims to democratize the act of city making and in doing so impact decisions in the interest of both the city and its citizens.

The project lies in the very centre of Tbilisi, regenerating a monumental disused power station. The organization is framed and directed by architecture, and can be understood as a composition of parts, the ensemble of which becomes a figure of the city at large by representing some its intrinsic conflict and variation. A complex architectural composition embedded within a holistic urban strategy aims to unite the building with its object of concern; the city.

The Agonistic City reimagines the project of the city by curating the agonistic political processes that shape it.    

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An Agonistic Arena - the architecture serves to frame and direct political processes of sharing and negotiation.

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A Composition of Parts - both the program and corresponding architectural proposal can be understood as a composition of parts, representing some of the conflict central to both the city and its citizens.

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A Civic Infrastructure - the project is as much a piece of urban infrastructure as it is a working organization, and the project centers around the thresholds between these polarities. They converge spatially within a central circulation core, where multiple public and organizational routes intersect.

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A Collection of Civic Spaces - by integrating various civic functions, the center can act as both an institution for urbanism and a civic destination.

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The Great Hall - various civic functions are introduced into the revived ruin, creating a gradient between the open city and the particularity of the organization’s urban processes.

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From Promenade to Forum - the central circulation connects the public promenade with the other institutional functions such as the Forum and the Archive building.

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An Urban Connector - the pedestrian bridge creates new links through the city, beginning its process of urban transformation through agonistic production.

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