A small country of 5m people in the heart of the Caucasus region isn’t an obvious candidate for exciting modern architecture, but the former President Saakashvili was a big believer in the power of architecture to help rapidly modernise Georgia. Throughout the country there are striking civic buildings, often in the most unlikely places, and some interesting commercial buildings such as this petrol station and motorway service station. Mestia is the small if fast growing hub for the Upper Svaneti region, in the Caucasus Mountains. The town is filled with thousand year old stone towers, new traditional style buildings, and this trio of civic buildings including the police station. The hugely expensive Parliament is striking in design, if somewhat lost on the outskirts of Kutaisi.Mtskheka is an ancient city, home to some of the holiest sites in Georgia and the less ancient civic and police station buildings.The Tbilisi concert hall remains incomplete, with an empty interior, but the exterior is an impressive site close to the banks of the Mtkvari River. Close by is the Tbilisi Justice Hall, the one stop civic centre for the city, looking like something out of a futuristic Smurfs, with its giant mushroom shaped roofs.