HISTORICAL BUILDINGS
SECOND GOVERNMENT HOUSE
1944-1955
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, they 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.
They designed it to be in unity 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
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 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.
