HISTORICAL BUILDINGS

1905-1910

The building is located at the intersection of Republic Street, Melik-Adamyan Street, and Tigran Mets Avenue.

From 1905, the Governor of Yerevan (1896–1916), Count Vladimir Tiesenhausen, lived and worked in this house with his family. The governor’s office and the nearby governor’s building gave the street its name “Gubernskaya” (Governor’s Street).

From 1918 to 1920, the government of the First Republic of Armenia operated in this building.

After the Battle of Sardarapat (1918), from the semicircular balcony on the second floor of this building, Aram Manukyan, the founder of the First Republic of Armenia, proclaimed Armenia’s independence and raised the Armenian tricolor flag.

After the establishment of Soviet rule in Armenia, the building housed the Armenian Revolutionary Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars.

From 1965 to 1998, the building housed the Committee for Cultural Relations with the Armenian Diaspora of the Armenian SSR, the editorial office of its newspaper “Voice of the Homeland”, and other state institutions.

In 1987–1988, while preserving the overall architectural style, a new annex was added from the north side on Melik-Adamyan Street, with the aim of recreating an urban environment characteristic of old Yerevan in the triangle formed by Alaverdyan and Melik-Adamyan streets.

The governor’s house is a two-story building with a basement. Its plan is determined by the terrain, due to which the southeastern and western walls form an acute angle (rounded in plan), and the six western rooms are trapezoidal.

The first floor was intended for the governor’s office. In the central part of the building, along its transverse axis, there is an entrance hall and a staircase. The volumetric-spatial composition artistically emphasizes the southeastern and western façades. The transition is symmetrical, with a semicircular, metal, openwork cantilever balcony. All openings are rectangular.

The masonry uses stones of different colors: against the main dark background of the walls, pink tuff highlights divisions, projections, and horizontal bands, as well as decorative elements. The walls are decorated with molded ornaments, and the wall stoves are faced with colored mosaic tiles in the form of rosettes and flowers.

Load-bearing walls are made of stone with lime mortar. Street-facing façades are clad in tuff stone. Interior walls use straw with clay mortar. The ceilings are wooden and flat, while the basement vaults are stone.

Between 2006 and 2010, the interior volumes of the building were completely demolished and reconstructed, and additional floors were added. Only the external walls were preserved. Today, the building also functions as a business center housing various organizations.