Tbilisi—Risingland

Ubani—Tbilisi Cityscape Research Center, in collaboration with IUAV University of Venice, is now presenting the exhibition Tbilisi—Risingland, which features the outcomes of a work focused on critical representations of the geological intimacy of Tbilisi through the creation of three-dimensional hand-made models.

Tbilisi—Risingland presents the handmade works created during the Tbilisi Landscape Modeling workshop, held in September 2025, as part of Ubani’s educational program, which was led by Renato Rizzi, together with his assistants Susanna Pisciella, Giorgia Antonioli, and David Brodsky. The workshop involved around 100 participants—both local and international students and young professionals, who created two models of the city. The process involved preparing drawings for printing, cutting, and gluing paper and cardboard for the first positive model, then casting silicone negatives, followed by plaster positives as exhibition material.

Renato Rizzi's workshop program is based on his own methodologies of practical and theoretical research in which the model is not simply a scaled-down representation at the end of the architectural process, but instead serves as the project's most critical instrument, dealing not with what is already visible, but with the not-yet, no-longer visible in landscape: its interiority. This methodology, oriented towards capturing the ideal dimension of reality, requires a forced reversal of the gaze that shifts away from a rigid, zenithal regime, and brings the landscape back to a vital condition that recenters the territory’s subjectivity.

The works presented at the exhibition include: an orthogonal model of Tbilisi with increased verticalities that create an intensified perspective, a model of Metekhi Cliff that explores the interiority of the city’s elevations, silicone negatives, photographs, and two panels. One panel shows the development of the drawing of isohypses used for the orthogonal model of Tbilisi at a reduced scale, featuring 1,131 isolines. The other panel displays each of the full-page spreads from L’Ottava Vita (per Brilka), a book by Nino Haratischvili. This pairing connects to the project’s core theme: a dialogue between architecture and literature that both emerge from the same historical and geological landscape. 

As Renato Rizzi notes, the landscape is alive and erratic, full of layered meanings and values that go through hidden processes of transformation. This idea closely relates to his methodology, which seeks to bring to the surface the hidden and distant dimensions of the landscape. Similarly, L’Ottava Vita (per Brilka) uncovers the history of one family across multiple generations. According to Rizzi, its central character, Brilka, the girl to whom the book is dedicated, embodies the indomitability of arché, symbolising the landscape itself. In this sense, the generations described in the book reflect the layered formation of the landscape of Tbilisi, explaining the relationship between architecture and literature.  

The project is in dialogue with L’Ottava Vita (per Brilka), Nino Haratischwili, © Marsilio 2020.

Organised by Ubani—Tbilisi Cityscape Research Center (David Brodsky, Ana Chorgolashvili, Natalia Tatunashvili), a non-profit organisation with the mission of gathering and presenting knowledge about Tbilisi’s landscape, architecture, and urban environment.

Supported and hosted by TBC Concept Gallery, which showcases contemporary art exhibitions in Tbilisi, Georgia. 

Partners: Embassy of Italy in Georgia; Kinos Hub; Gravita; ibis Budget Tbilisi Center; NWDS; IUAV University of Venice; Apollon Kutateladze Tbilisi State Academy of Arts; Ilia State University (IIiauni B.Arch). A special thank you to Marsilio Editori (Italian publishing house), VA[A]DS Free University of Tbilisi, Jesse Vogler, and Malkhaz Lekveishvili.