When the city’s planning department publicly presented a proposal to renovate Agmashenebli Avenue in January, they probably weren’t expecting the battle over architecture that followed. At issue were the plans for Tbilisi’s first movie theatre, the now defunct Apollo., specifically, the proposal to add an extra floor to the building
“The project showed that it was planned to add an extra floor to the buildings which considerably changed the building,” says Nestan tatarashvili, anarchitect, and head of the Art Nouveau Preservation Group in Georgia. As the name suggests, her group is vigorously in favour of protecting the city’s Art Nouveau architecture, of which the Apollo was considered a prime example. “Even in the world there are left only a few this kind of building,” claims Tatarashvili.
The group has had some success in changing the design options for the renovated movie theature. They immediately intiated a facebook campaign called “ Save cinema Apollo, which boasts nearly 2,000 members. Tatarashvili also met privately with city planners in February, and said she was assured by them that a new floor won’t be added.
This has made defenders of the original Apollo architecture quite happy. As one of them, the art critic Manon Liluashvili, says: “All this trouble proved to be very useful to Apollo’s future. As the Architects have promised that there won’t be done any alterations to the building. And no extra floor will be added to the building.”
The Apollo was opened in 1909and designed by the architect Ivan Kulich. The foyer and the hall were decorated by Italian painters. The premier of the first Georgian sound film was here ( “ shaqiri “ 1932 by leo esakia ) During the soviet period Apollo was renamed in Oqtomberi to honour the day of October’ssoviet revolution . In 1987 it was reconstructed and prepared for afilm festival. In 1990 the old name was returned to the cinema, and it hasn’t been used since
