HISTORICAL BUILDINGS
SECOND GOVERNMENT HOUSE
1944-1955
State index: 1.6.96.5
Architect: Samvel Safaryan, with participation of Rafael Israelyan and Varazdat Arevshatyan
Architect: Samvel Safaryan, with participation of Rafael Israelyan and Varazdat Arevshatyan
Located
in the northwestern part of Republic Square.
Architect
Nikolai Tokarsky created the original design. Initially, it was planned to
construct the building on Abovyan Street on the site of the old Trade Union
building and a two-story brick house. After the end of the Great Patriotic War,
Samvel Safaryan, in collaboration with Rafael Israelyan and Varazdat
Arevshatyan, designed the house of the Industrial Cooperation Administration. It
was designed to harmonize with the "Ararat" trust building and to
complete that section of the square. During the construction of the second
floor of the building, the “Ararat” restaurant building was also designed.
The Second Government House includes the “Ararat” trust building and the building
of the Industrial Cooperation Administration. It forms a unified composition and
sits is positioned symmetrically with the First Government House. The spatial
solution corresponds to the general compositional features of the First
Government House, namely: a three-story, low, rectangular volume in the
trapezoidal part of the square, a tower at the transition to the main
concave-semicircular volume. The architects gave the facade planes a similar
solution.
A
bookstore occupied the first floor of the rectangular part of the building, in
front of which an arcade gallery was constructed along the entire length of the
facade, with steps leading from the street (currently not in use). Decorative
arcades adorn the facade of the "Ararat" trust building. Architects
placed high windows on the wall surfaces under the arches. They designed the
upper part as a balcony with columns. A grand entrance and a decorative
colonnade rising above it accentuate the corner part of the building (at the
intersection of Abovyan and Pavstos Buzand streets).
The
"Ararat" restaurant once operated in the basement of the rectangular
volume, and a café was located along Buzand Street.
The building material is white stone from the village of Antaramut in Lori
province. The foundation was built from polished granite from Pambak.
Republic Square
