HISTORICAL BUILDINGS
SECOND GOVERNMENT HOUSE
1944-1955
Architect: Samvel
Safaryan, with participation of Rafael Israelyan and Varazdat Arevshatyan
State index: 1.6.96.5
Located in the northwestern part of Republic Square.
Architect Nikolai Tokarsky created the original design. Initially, they planned to construct the building on Abovyan Street on the site of the old Trade Union building and a two-story brick house. Later, architects Samvel Safaryan, Mark Grigoryan, and Hovhannes Margaryan worked on the project (the “Ararat” trust building).
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. They designed it to be in unity with the "Ararat" trust building and to complete that section of the square. They had already constructed the second floor of the building when the idea of designing the “Ararat” restaurant was born and implemented.
The Second Government House includes the “Ararat” trust building and the Industrial Cooperation Administration house. It presents a solid whole and sits 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 builders constructed an open arcade gallery along the entire length of the facade, with steps leading from the street (currently not functioning). 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 P. Buzand streets).
The “Ararat”
restaurant occupies the ground floor of the rectangular volume, while a cafe
sits along Buzand Street.
The builders used white stone from the village of Antaramut in the Lori region as the building material. They built the foundation from polished Pambak granite.
“Scientific Research Centre of Historical and Cultural Heritage” SNCO
Yerevan Municipality
