New buildings in the capital of Armenia are being constructed without any account being taken of the traditional architectural style of the city or its financial capabilities.
Armenian architects strongly oppose numerous new buildings in Yerevan, as they ruin its unique ensemble by putting multi-storey houses in place of national buildings made of tufa.
New construction is often undertaken to the detriment of recreational areas and the general layout of Alexander Tamanian, the creator of new Yerevan. Alexander Tamanian, a great Armenian architect, was born in the city of Yekaterinodar in 1878 into the family of a banker. He graduated from the St Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1904. He became an Academician of Architecture in 1914 and in 1917 he was elected Vice-President of the Academy of Arts. In 1923 he moved to Yerevan, heading the new construction effort in the republic. Tamanian is often compared to Peter the Great, as he created a completely new city in Yerevan from provincial town into a city with a regular layout, separating its administrative, educational, industrial and cultural districts. He managed to combine the neo-classical style with traditional Armenian medieval architectural traditions, laying a foundation for the style of all future construction projects. However, the general state of affairs in the country in the past 10 years has left its imprint on the look of the capital.
The Chairman of the Armenian Architects Union, Mkrtich Minasyan, declared that the high concentration of multi-storey buildings in the center of Yerevan is not only an aesthetic problem, but also a construction and seismic standards violation, as well as a threat to the health of the capital’s residents.
Experts admit that it is hard to tell the newly-constructed blocks in Yerevan from the outskirts of any Russian or European town.
The construction of multi-storey houses also destroys parking-zones within the city. These zones are vitally important in Armenia’s climatic conditions, combined with the growth of Yerevan’s population, caused by the economic situation in the country.
Another serious problem is the illegal construction of new buildings. According to the statistics, 74,899 out of 150,000 illegally constructed houses are in Yerevan. The chief architect of Yerevan, Samvel Danielyan, declared that the arbitrariness in city planning must be stopped immediately.
Some measures have already been undertaken, but they are not sufficient to solve the problem. Moreover, it is possible to stop developers from further construction of multi-storey houses, but the ones that have already been built are enough to spoil the look of Yerevan. The apartments in these new houses, intended to be sold to Armenians from the Diaspora who wish to return to their homeland, are still empty due to the economic crisis, while investors allocate funds into construction in the capital only.
Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan, exclusively to VK
