Tamanyan’s Yerevan Between Constructivism and Stalin Era Architecture

Abstract

Aleksander Tamanian (1878-1936) planned to raise a core cultural building, the People's House, in the center of Yerevan. He wanted to create it in the form of a temple, which would mark the spot where in ancient times allegedly stood a pagan temple of song. The project and construction of the People's House faced many attacks from the proletarian architects who followed constructivist architectural ideas and were presenting, using V. Paperny's terminology, the revolutionary and egalitarian Culture One. In early 1930s, a new style of Stalin era architecture, representing Culture Two, replaced Culture One. In the 1934 project version, Tamanian's People's House was influenced by this hierarchical and vertical worldview. However, after the death of the architect in 1936, his son continued his father's grand construction, depriving it of Stalin era architecture characteristics. His further edition of father's project gave the city the core building of the Opera and Ballet Theater, the most telling sample of Tamanian's Culture Two, which differs and actually precedes the Stalin era Culture Two.