Location: Mtskheta, Kartli, Georgia
Year: 2025
Status: Ongoing
The artist’s workshop is our new ongoing project in the vicinity of Jvari Monastery, Mtskheta, Georgia. The concept of the building is tied closely to the diverse needs of the client, who happens to be a winemaker, puppet craftsman and calligrapher.The functions are divided into two buildings, one being the workshop, where the artist crafts his work, while the other serves as a gallery and wine cellar, which stores and puts his work on display.The morphologies of the two buildings differ as they serve different functions, but both are based on the idea of the main pillar – a central load-bearing structural element around which the whole dramaturgy of the building evolves. Another common feature is materiality – both buildings feature a steel roof, as it is one of the main materials in which the artist carves his calligraphy work.The gallery/wine volume, being the bigger one of the two, is completely buried underground, firstly, to respect the existing landscape and not make a harsh intervention, and secondly, to create naturally cool climate in the interior, reducing the energy costs of maintaining steady temperature for wine aging. The only part of the building that reveals itself is the roof, which is a series of steps in steel sheets, repeating the inclination of the slope. Skylights emerge from the steps, allowing daylight into the interior.The workshop is housed in a simple stone-clad volume, with the roof shaping the character of the structure, as in the case of the other building. Two separate reinforced concrete pillars, connected with a beam, hold the pitched steel roof, which floats above the stone mass and is held in place by steel cables, resembling puppet rod-string controllers.