Old Tbilisi builds in two materials that never pretend to be one. The wall is butter-ochre lime plaster, chalky and spalled, showing brick where it has come away. Hung off it are the balconies — carved *barakoni*, glazed *shushabandi* galleries — painted blue-green, willow, oxblood, and cantilevered past their supports over shared courtyards.

The system keeps that division. Plaster is the page and stays plaster. Painted timber is the figure: fretwork balustrades sawn into scallops and trefoils, turned colonnettes, small-pane glazing bars, and the hard shadow each pierced board throws back onto the wall behind it.