Architectural guide: Yerevan

Yerevan and Mount Ararat - which is within clear view - occupy significant places within Armenian culture, even allowing that today's capital once lay elsewhere prior to the devastating earthquake of 1679 and also that Mount Ararat now falls within Turkish territory. Natural catastrophes together with the genocide of 1915 are etched deeply into the identity and consequently the architecture of Armenia. This architectural guide traces the history of Yerevan on the basis of street outlines which played such a decisive role in determining how construction would develop. Armenian Constructivism, the national style, Soviet Modernism and the role of the Armenian diaspora are all themes which find expression in narrative form. An additional excursion takes the reader off to Spitak which was destroyed by an earthquake in 1988 and was supposed to be rebuilt elsewhere as the last model city of the Soviet Union. This architectural guide therefore concludes with questions about the essential nature and character of the modern Armenian city too.