We must preserve Yerevan’s identifiable image, says ex-chief architect

Armenia’s urban development minister, who was formerly the chief architect of Yerevan, expresses his disagreement to the widespread belief that the capital city is losing it one-time local color.

In an interview with Tert.am, Narek Sargsyan said he sees that Yerevan is implementing much more serious civil projects than Tbilisi and Baku, the capitals of the neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan. He said the local architects always demonstratie a unique care for their capital.

“Regardless of the opinions about Yerevan’s image, I definitely hold the view that Yerevan is developing. I am happy to see that the ideas about Yerevan, which I and many colleagues of mine share, is that the identifiable image, including the national features, must by all means be preserved to help at least central Yerevan to develop. Trends of modern architecture must exist of course, but we must work to the best of our efforts to make central Yerevan different from the central parts of many world cities. This is a task of paramount importance,” he noted.

Asked why then the Yerevan city authorities did not manage to preserve the original image of the Covered Market (which was registered as an architectural monument), with the Zvartnots International Airport’s old building now being under threat, the former chief architect said he thinks that a lot more positive has been done in the past decades against the backdrop of what is widely seen as a failure.

“No decision for pulling down the Airport’s building has been made yet, but there have been deformations and botched alterations … And the example you bring [that of the Market] is one of them, but I think a great deal of work has been done over these years. If I enumerate the urban development errors of the Soviet years, that’s an incredible figure. We now have a state with a history of 20-25 years, so it isn’t possible to do everything within just a fraction of a second. What we need to consider further is that urban development, as a sector, has a clear demand in terms of shaping a civil society. So they all are interconnected with one another,” Sargsyan added.