Courtesy of Tbilisi Architecture Biennial
The notion of “commons” unites open resources of any kind: natural, cultural, spatial, material and immaterial – of which ownership and access is shared. These common resources need to be maintained, as do the collection of practices that govern and preserve them. Yet Georgia‘s rapid shift to a neoliberal political system in the 1990s resulted in a new understanding of these commons – resources that are open for commodification and individualization. As finite resources, these commons need to be sustained, nurtured and managed by communities and professionals. Architects, urbanists and state institutions have a fundamental role to play in the reclamation of the commons – no more so than in Tbilisi.