The city of Tashkent just celebrated its 2,200th birthday, but the Uzbek capital, once a stop on the Silk Road, has retained little of its ancient architecture. In 1966, a 5.0-magnitude earthquake mostly leveled the city’s historic center of clay-brick buildings. The Soviet Union rebuilt with modern structures lining wide boulevards. But in the decades since Soviet rule, the Uzbek government has redeveloped the area with an eye toward bringing traditional ornamentation back to the city’s architecture while creating a sophisticated capital that embraces an international brand of contemporary design.
One of its recent efforts, the International Forums Palace, anchors a prominent site on Tashkent’s Amir Timur Square. A large convention hall — and an outward-looking public face for Uzbekistan — it was designed by a local team, but officials decided to bring in Stuttgart-based Ippolito Fleitz Group for the interiors. Pleased with the result, officials also asked the German firm to design interiors for the adjacent Belfry Tashkent, a 3,600-square-foot retail space selling traditionally made jewelry, housed in a re-created historic bell tower....
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