HISTORICAL BUILDINGS

1876; late 19th - early 20th century

State indices: 1.6.203.13, 1.6.203.13.1

Corpus: 1876, builder: Michael von der Nonne

Governorate: late 19th - early 20th century, architect: Vasily Mirzoyan

The building is located on Hanrapetutyan Street, in the quarter between Tigran Mets Avenue and Pavstos Buzand Street, at 32 Hanrapetutyan Street. It consists of two adjoining large and small volumes that are dissimilar in layout, spatial composition, and decorative design of facades and interiors.

According to an 1853 contract, the Yerevan City Council leased a small adobe house from Haji Abbas Kyalbalai Abdu Hussein-oglu, a Persian national, for 25 years, paying 600 rubles annually. The building consisted of 9 rooms, 2 anterooms, and a shed.

In 1876, after settling all issues with Hussein-oglu, the city council, before the contract expired, demolished the adobe structure and built the current small, one-story, low annex of black tuff as the office of the Persian Consul (1876-1920). The project was designed by Michael von der Nonne, a German national and provincial engineer, under whose supervision the building was constructed.

At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, a large two-story Provincial Administration building (on the left) made of orange tuff, designed by Vasily Mirzoyan, and von der Nonne's income-generating houses (on the right) were added to the small annex.

After the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia, the territory was given to the Armenian Aid Committee.

From 1924, a party evening higher school operated here, and in 1927, electricity was installed on the premises. In 1928, in agreement with the party school leadership, architect Alexander Tamanyan ordered a magnificent chandelier from Italy, which still hangs from the ceiling of the corpus. For about 18 years, the territory was the residence of the military prosecutor, then remained empty for several years.

In 1964, the territory was given to the newly created Armenian Society for the Protection of Historical Monuments (later federation, since 2020 - Armenian Society for the Protection of Historical Monuments “Bnorran”). For decades, the annex served as the office of the society's chairman.

The Provincial Administration building is a two-story, large structure. It has a rectangular plan (22.7 m x 15.9 m). The rooms are divided by a corridor (room spans are 5.4 m, 5.2 m, one room measures 37.6 sq. m, corridor span is 1.69 m). It connects with the small annex through an entrance opening on the right side of the corridor.

The consular small annex with a rectangular plan (5.8 m along Hanrapetutyan Street, 8.3 m deep into the territory) has one room facing the street (27.9 sq. m) and two niches (oriented in the opposite direction).

Unlike the restrained decorative design of the large building, the decorative facade of the corpus is unique among the preserved architectural monuments of the 19th - early 20th centuries in Yerevan. The main motif of its artistic solution is a rosette carved above paired windows, adorned with braided ornaments. The interior is decorated with crystal pendants made of mirror glass and wall paintings. The latter were created by Armenian masters, combining Armenian and Persian ornamental motifs. They were restored in 1949, 1974, and 2016.

The load-bearing walls are made of tuff laid on mortar, the main two-story volume is orange, and the small annex is black. The street-facing facades are lined with cleanly hewn stone. The ceilings are flat and wooden. The roof is sloped.

In 2014-2016, the building was partially renovated with funds from the Armenian branch of ICOMOS (which occupied part of the building), and the wall paintings and mirrors of the annex were completely renewed.

“Scientific Research Centre of Historical and Cultural Heritage” SNCO

Yerevan Municipality