BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2016 – NATIONAL PARTICIPATION OF REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA

The Pavilion of the Republic of Armenia at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition-La Biennale di Venezia will announce the launch of a unique landscape mapping laboratory of independent Armenia, which will focus on the study and reinterpretation of spatial transformations and its variations from 1991 to present.The ongoing results of thematic research will be uploaded on www.independentlandscape.am website that will immediately appear on the screens of the pavilion, to highlight the importance of the process and in-progress work as the result itself.

In 1990, on the verge of Armenian independence, in the Bem journal of the Union of Theatre Professionals of Armenia Levon Abrahamian published an article titled "Ritual, Pre-theatre and the Theatre Square", with attending photo illustrations by Zaven Khachikyan.

Throughout the 20th century Gyumri saw two major earthquakes and if the earthquake of 1926 only ruined some houses and became history, that of 1988 not only rocked the entire city but also its soul.

Virtually, the contemporary cemetery, aside from the few still remaining parts in the old tradition (which disappear very quickly), are the most extravagant and lacking any conceptual solution component of contemporary Armenian urban landscape.

Expanded Housing is a study aimed to map peculiarities of these expansions and try to understand social and psychological roots of this continuous and endless urban morph.

Metsamor is a company town of Nuclear Power Plant which for me is the crystalized phenomenon of Armenia's recent history - from late Soviet and early independent Armenia. It is a clear soviet modern program with some local “national” elements that failed with the collapse of Soviet Union when the central financing was stopped and the power plant was shut down as a result of environmental activism. In 2007 I had a chance to be part of the team developing new master plan for the town when I discovered this ashy crystal.