OBSERVATIONS ON THE OLD, THE NEW, AND YEREVAN
By Alen Amirkhanian

er-hall/
2010/03/29 | 00:04

Feature Stories culture

In the 1990’s I had the chance to live in Armenia for a few years. It
was my first time in Yerevan. Those were times of hardship and
suffering for Armenians: the Spitak earthquake of 1988, the war over
Nogorno Karabagh with its casualties and economic blockades, and the
country’s newly gained independence that complicated matters further.

But all of this is familiar recent history, fresh memory.

What I would like to share are my observations of Yerevan,
the physical city; the remnants of an ancient city that was
fundamentally reformulated in the 70 years of Soviet reign. Some of
these observations may sound simplistic, some politically incorrect,
and some controversial. But I pray that you read them with kindness
as I have written them with kindness, hoping for a civil and mutually
respectful resolution to a recent civic crisis in the capital-the
plight of Cinema Moscow’s Open-Air Hall.

Observation One: Yerevan Was Loved, and It Was for People and Culture

What I saw was that in the Soviet era great care and love had gone
into molding Yerevan into a city that was for people and culture. The
city wasn’t designed to aggrandize the state. In fact cultural
institutions occupied the dominant points in the city. Even in the
Republic Square, home to the highest governmental offices, the National
Gallery stood taller and more prominent that all. The governmental
buildings seem to stand hand-in-hand guarding the National Gallery,
an institution established to preserve the best in the fine arts this
culture produced. Tamanyan’s suggested Northern Ave., which was not
yet built, was connecting the National Gallery and the Opera, making
them the highest structures in the vicinity.

Yerevan was also not designed to be an industrial city. Industrial
cities leave the distinct impression that people are yet another input
in the production process, like raw materials and fuel. There were no
doubt industrial districts but they were not what the city revolved
around. As importantly, it wasn’t a city designed for automobiles. You
could easily walk everywhere, esp. in the center. And you could take
multiple routes to get to one place. For longer distances, the trams,
the metro, the buses, and the minibuses got you everywhere. There
was an abundance of public space, which people loved to use. These
spaces ranged from wide sidewalks to semi private "hayats" to lush
grand parks.

Monuments to political figures were used sparingly. Stalin’s mega
monument was removed soon after his death and replaced by Mother
Armenia. The most prominent one left was Lenin’s statue in the Republic
Square. But that had already been removed by the time I arrived. The
most prominent urban sites were dedicated to painters, musicians,
and poets. Every step of the way, there was a plaque on a building,
usually carved gorgeously, marking the residence of a scientist,
a painter, a poet. The city was celebrating its achievements in the
sciences and the arts one stone at a time, one statue at a time,
one public square at time.

Observation Two: Valuable History Was Destroyed

I learned that valuable historical structures and neighborhoods
were destroyed to build what I was seeing. And that saddened me. In
my judgment these were grave errors. Gone was the St. Boghos Bedros
Church where Cinema Moscow now stands. Gone was the beautiful Russian
Church where now Shahumian’s monument stands. Gone were the remnants
of the Yerevan fortress, a bitter reminder of this people’s colonial
past. Entry into the fortress was forbidden to the Christians, the
Armenians. It was reserved for the Persian governors, their emissaries
and merchants. And perhaps because of this bitter past we should have
preserved it. We should have preserved it as a reminder of a time
when Armenians lacked freedom of movement within their own lands, a
restriction imposed by a foreign power. Gone also were the bazaar area
adjacent to the fortress with its large square and connecting narrow
and winding streets. But fortunately the Blue-Domed Mosque had survived
though it lacked its former grandeur. It was squeezed in-between new
and insensitive structures, as if accommodated grudgingly.

I thought, surely they could have built the new city without destroying
the old. Maybe there was still hope to preserve the center with Lalayan
Street and its web of narrow roads and magical courtyards that were
still intact in the 1990’s. If not every individual building, maybe the
spirit of that historic center could be saved. The debates over the
plight of that neighborhood were raging in the Soviet times. After
all Tamanyan had planned the Northern Avenue with full intent of
building it. It turns out that the collapse of the Soviet Union
only delayed the demise of that area. When the real-estate boom of
the 2000’s bulldozed in, the destruction of the city’s valuable past
continued. Ostensibly, government officials went through the mechanics
of numbering the stones that were removed from the old buildings, with
the pretense of saving it for reconstitution at a later time. Today
many people wonder where those numbered stones are "preserved."

Observation three: There Were Modern Treasures in Yerevan

I took ample walks in the streets of Yerevan. I was mesmerized by
the Kaskad, I was moved by Tsitsernakaberd, and I was enchanted
by the Komitas Chamber Music Hall-all modern treasures. But one
architectural gem managed to take my breath away, Cinema Moscow’s
Open-Air Hall. It was a structure that conveyed the sense of an
advanced country willing to courageously engage in an aesthetic
dialogue with the world at large.

The Open-Air Hall was built in the 1960’s, rooted in the rich art
movement of Constructivism. Though the movement was abruptly switched
off by Stalin in the early 1930’s, it experienced a restrained
resurgence in the Khrushchev era, in the 1960’s.

onstructivism has fascinated and inspired countless artists and art
institutions in the West. It continues to do so to this day. Super
stars in the today’s world of architecture, Zaha Hadid and Rem
Koolhaas among them, are directly inspired by the work of the
Constructivists. Most major modern art museums in the West include
in their collections paintings, collages, or assemblages from this
movement: MOMA in New York, Tate Modern in London, Hammer in Los
Angeles, and the list goes on. My first exposure to the Constructivists
took place in the 1980s, before the breakup of the Soviet Union,
at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The Walker had organized
a superb exhibition on this movement and the exhibition was to tour
many cities in the U.S.

Built in the 1960’s, during the brief revival of Constructivism,
the Open-Air Hall represented the best and the highest that movement
had to offer. It waved a defiant goodbye to the heavy, formal, and
at times oppressive Stalinist structures. It also decidedly switched
direction from the playful classicism of Tamanyan and his followers.

After the Stalinian horror, it summoned a freedom of spirit-collective
spirit-that strove to heal. It did so with breathtaking simplicity and
elegance. In it’s elegance it was only matched by Tzizernakaberd. It
was an exquisite needlework in the fabric of this formalist,
19th-century-looking city. It was a supreme example of how you
seamlessly co-locate the aesthetics of the old with the aesthetics
of the new, the values of the old with the values of the new.

>>From a compositional point of view the Open-Air Hall achieved
something amazing. Within the same structure it conveyed a sense
of stability and flight-opposites in one. It became an ingenious
antithesis to the Opera complex down the street, striking a perfect
balance. The Open-Air Hall wasn’t grand. It wasn’t symbolic. It wasn’t
historical. It was pure joy-collective joy. And it was designed for
a lowbrow, plebian art: cinema. All the best that the Constructivists
achieved was summarized by this work.

And I was thinking what a gift to future generations. Generation
after generation of Armenian youth will grow up with this structure
in their everyday experience. If only every generation can give to
the future just one gift like this.

I suppose I was too naïve. Even masterpieces like the Open-Air Hall
can be subject to the arbitrary whims of powers that be. On March 4,
2010, through an opaque and questionable process, the Government of
Armenia adopted a decision to remove the Cinema Moscow Open-Air Hall
from the list of cultural-historical structures. Its entry into the
list had ensured its preservation. With this decision, the road was
paved for the destruction of the Open-Air Hall. The current owner
of the space has donated the site to the Armenian Apostolic Church,
which has plans to tear down the Open-Air Hall and "rebuild" the
St. Boghos Bedros Church on that site.

The shock of all of this is hard to put in words. At the mildest the
new plans smacked of barbarism. As the noted architectural historian
Samvel Karapetyan has persuasively argued, from a restoration point of
view it is absurd to think that the St. Boghos-Bedros can be rebuilt.

The location of the church torn down in the 1930s may only partially
overlap with that of the Open-Air Hall, if at all. As far as anyone
knows no building materials have survived from the church edifice. So
what will be built is something entirely new in a location that is
entirely new. So the effort has nothing to do with rebuilding the St.

Boghos-Bedros Church.

Since news of the removal of the Open-Air Hall from the list emerged,
a wildfire of grassroots protest has built up against the demolition of
the Hall. At the time of writing this article 5,000 people had already
joined "SAVE Cinema Moscow’s Open-Air Hall" on Facebook. The numbers
are growing by the hour. The organizers have also started circulating
petitions for signatures. So far they’ve collected 14,000 signatures
against the demolition.

Whether Armenians need more churches or not should remain beyond the
current discussion. That discussion sidetracks us from the core issue
at hand-our obligation to preserving the valuable past. The Open-Air
Hall is a superlative example of the valuable past.

Without a doubt people who want to pray and light candles should
have a place to do so. But to offer them such a place by destroying
cultural gems is something worthy of the Taliban and not the Armenian
Apostolic Church. I pray that the Church will reconsider its decision.

I pray that countless generations will walk by the Open-Air Hall and
be touched by its warm magic and ponder the relationship of the old
and the new, of the past and present, of history and the future.

END

Alen Amirkhanian is an urban planner who lives in the past, present,
but more often in the future