Architecture and friendship among nations: the shifting politics of cultural diplomacy in Tbilisi, Georgia

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 1938, the Soviet Georgian administration inaugurated the iconic Institute of Marx, Engels, and Lenin (IMEL) in Tbilisi under pretences of socialist unity and friendship among Soviet nations. Three quarters of a century later, the same building – now privatised, heavily renovated, and re-branded – was re-inaugurated as the seven-star Biltmore Hotel. The hotel’s grand opening included an enormous video projection on the western façade, telling the story of a new friendship among nations, this time between independent Georgia and the United Arab Emirates as the hotel’s financiers. This article tracks the shifting politics of cultural diplomacy associated with this adaptive reuse project. It contributes to a growing body of scholarship on cultural diplomacy by delving deeper into the social, political, and economic implications surrounding the particular use of friendship rhetoric in such practices. In doing so, it charts the manipulation of architecture to communicate international cooperation and the power of its patrons. Drawing from archival sources, field observations, media analysis, and focus groups, the work argues that, rather than an outmoded means of public service announcement, symbolic architecture continues to be a crucial arena for state politics, one entangled with new modes of spectacle in the city.