Clock towers belong to that part of civilizational lore where one begins with utility, meanders into romance and culminates into an expression of defiance… for these large timepieces, with their gargantuan dials and gongs and chimes perched atop stacks of brick and mortar, were meant to discipline the masses… yet with every passing second, art started to creep in, chipping away at the sense of structure to make way for fluidity… recognizing that time maybe linear but is hardly ever drab… some moments last an eternity while others escape in the blink of an eye… so these structures meant to instil order became podiums for rebellious proclamations… plinths for their pithy… clock towers as such, are anything but about time… symbols of community and identity that speak of the times gone by and forewarn of the travails to come…
Thus one ruminated, looking at the deliberately dishevelled disposition of the Gabriadze Clock Tower in the heart of Tbilisi, standing aloof yet a tad innocuously amidst a short network of alleys that seemed like an alcove for artists… miniature paintings stacked up on the walls and trinkets spread for sale outside cafes promising live evening music…
‘Tis a recent construction for the ‘old town’, built in 2010 by a renowned Georgian artist Rezo Gabriadze – a writer, director and puppeteer we’re told – whose theatre lies adjacent to this unruly stack of stones, mostly made from reused materials and discarded relics… ‘tis built to convey exasperation it seems… of watching one’s coveted world move on… apathetic people and polity that can’t seem to break free from the cocoon of technology and the ennui that it has spawned, one intent on erasing the cultural treasures of the past…
Architecturally, it felt at once a swipe at and an ode to the brutalists… disgusted by their clean, colourless rigid, lifeless forms, but not averse to show the construction materials in their bare, unadorned form… the tilt and the teetering appearance – combined with a style reminiscent of the medieval times – seem more theatrics than construction anomalies, aiming to convey decay and decadence…
Once done with trying to interpret social commentary, one gets to the artistry… the part where the artist, having grumbled his disappointment through the crude facade, sets down to embellish it, as if to show what’s possible if we try to build upon the past rather than over it… elaborate artwork on tiles adorn one lower portion, and clocks of myriad sizes are embedded into the walls, as if one could create a time machine by the sheer number of timepieces alone… then there’s trivia meant to elicit a chuckle or two, like the weight of the earth in kilograms…
Most endearing are the puppet shows perhaps… an angel emerging at the top of the tower to strike the hourly bell… twice a day – at noon and at seven in the evening – a small window opens below the clock for a short puppet show… love, marriage, child, funeral… aptly titled the ‘Circle of Life’… archaic, analogue, mechanical… a reminder of the nous that exists in the naïve…
The eccentric lie of the tower, structurally as well as metaphorically, draws in the expected tourist fare… meaning one spent quite a bit of time cursing under the breath for the throngs of tourists with their unquenchable thirst for selfies to clear, clutching preciously at a few moments where one could get a clean shot… for all said and done, time is an abomination of sorts… never stopping, never staying… all one can do is scrape together its vestiges and carve out a few souvenirs for posterity…
Musing on the leaning clocktower of Tbilisi, Georgia
