HOUSE OF GOVERNMENT

Location: Yerevan, Armenia
Architect: A. I. Tumanyan
Years of Design-Construction: 1926-1940

The house of Government xas erected on the newly designed main city square which has a combined outline of oval and trapezium shapes. The house is the organizing compositional center of the square. Its plan is an exclusive pentango of irregular form. The main entrance is at the central part of the building facing the square. The are also entrances from the northern, southern and eastern sides of the building.

The building facade looking to the square consists of five powerful horseshoe-shaped arches rested upon bundles of columns. Above the arches is one more story with a colonnade loggia along the whole facade...

The passage from the oval to the trapezium part of the square is underlined by a tower. Tamanyan creates a new motif which is inspired by traditional Armenian architectural order. It consists of two stretched columns framing a flat pilaster with a three-edged niche cut in its coreand amalgamated by a plastic fretted capital. Small decorative arches give a plastic expressiveness to the wall. In the center of the whole composition there are bundles of powerful columns bearing"perspectiv" arches. The wall material is tuff of warm pinkish tints. The scale and proportions of separate building parts are subordinated to town-planning requirements. This work of the out-standing architect influenced Armenian architectural development for a long time.