After collaborating on several cemetery projects with the municipal workshop, Djorbenadze received his first independent commission for a cemetery in Mukhatgverdi, a ridge on the outskirts of Tbilisi overlooking the ancient capital of Mtskheta. The commission was part of both a practical mandate to relieve overcrowding in Tbilisi's central cemeteries, and a Soviet ideological mandate to promote secular funeral rites among a residually Georgian Orthodox population. His designs for the ensemble (including an office, memorial space, water tower, and monument workshop) drew on Le Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp, earning him the nickname "Jorbusier" in the local architecture community. The cemetery was completed in 1974.