Yerevan Remade: The Case of the Northern Avenue

The Northern Avenue is a a pedestrian avenue in the downtown Yerevan (Kentron District) that opened in 2007. It is about 450 metres long and 27 metres wide. (Երևանի պատմության թանգարան) The street connects the Opera and Ballet House and the Republic Square. However, standing in the same location of the Northern Avenue marked on the map displayed below was not the empty residential buildings and the hollow shopping boutiques, but rather Armenian spirited houses and strong-willed Armenian people.

In 1999, Alexander Tamanyan, the architect of Yerevan, designed the original landscape floor plan of the city in a way that the centre of Yerevan would be filled with theatres, squares, hospitals and other essential institutions which had cultural and political importance. In his original plan, Tamanyan had designed to have the theatrical square, which is the present-day Opera and Ballet House and Liberty Square, and the Lenin’s square, which is the present-day Republic Square, to be connected through an avenue. Even though Tamanyan had the initial idea of urbanising Yerevan, after Armenia was Sovietised in late 1920, the plan of urbanising Yerevan was set aside. Throughout the years when Armenia was in the USSR, the brutalist and constructivist architecture of the Soviet Union took over Armenia and Yerevan. The discourse over the construction of the Northern Avenue area started regaining its importance in the 1960-1980s. (Vermishyan and Michikyan ) The discourse was put into action to build Northern Avenue only during the post-Soviet era. However, up until the point when the destruction of the Northern Avenue area was put into action, the area had become filled both with old tuff traditional buildings and soviet concrete block buildings. Both of the buildings standing in juxtaposition next to each other were symbolizing the long history of Yerevan, Armenia and the Armenian people. 

After the second president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan came into power with Narek Sargsyan, the architect of Yerevan at the time, they planned on building the so-called “Northern Avenue”. During President Kocharyan’s pre-election campaign, which started specifically from the Northern Avenue area, he mentioned that he specifically dislikes this part of the city where the current Northern Avenue is located. (Ազատություն) Building Northern Avenue required to first demolish the homes of the inhabitants who lived in the area. As a result, Northern Avenue was built and opened for pedestrians and residents in 2007. Since 2007, the avenue has become a centre for shopping or just pedestrians to enjoy a late evening walk. ( Vermishyan and Michikyan )

The Northern Avenue prior to its destruction was inhabited mostly by people from the middle and lower classes which is one of the main factors why the demolishing of the Northern Avenue was perceived as a classist political motive. The housing was considered to be a low-income. At that time Armenia had just started to recover from the First Artsakh War (1990-1994). Additionally, many were left to build their homes with their own resources due to the 1988 earthquake of 6.8 magnitude which left many homeless. In a nutshell, Buzand street, or in other words, the current Northern Avenue area, was a standing epitome of the history of Armenia through wars and earthquakes. It can be seen that the homes in the Northern Avenue area before were mostly in such conditions that would not necessarily be appealing to the outside world such as tourists. The houses were not built symmetrically to one another, since those homes were built by whatever resources at the moment those people had access to.

So as one can assume from the aforementioned, there was a very specific intent between the demolishment of the area. Hence, even one could claim that Robert Kocharyan was motivated classistly to destroy the area of the Northern Avenue and this has jeopardised the prosperity of the traditional Yerevan.

There are two main Contributing factors that justified the demolishment of the Buzand Street, as known as, the Northern Avenue.

• The 2002 ratified decision of the Armenian Government which stated that the state’s interests are prioritised over its citizens. (Ազատություն)
• Bringing true the actual plan of Urbanisation destined by Alexander Tamanyan to symbolise Armenia's independence.

However, if that was the actual goal of the Armenian government and their decision was justified through the 2002 ratified decision, than why were the resident's kicked out of their houses violently, with very little compensation and no offerings of alternative housing in the Northern Avenue when its building has been complete. Derived from this assumption, it can be said that the replacement of the Buzand street with the Northern Avenue was done with classist undertones in order to remove lower income housing from the downtown Yerevan in order to appear appealing to the outside world.

The types of urbanism that possibly the Armenian Government could have fund viable in the urbanisation process of Yerevan is Green Urbanism, Modernist Urbanism and New or in other words Left Urbanism.

Green urbanism is one of the oldest urban ideologies and it is described as the practice of creating communities that are convenient and beneficial to the inhabitants of those communities. (Vermishyan and Michikyan ) Below displayed are the 15 principles of Green Urbanism.

An example of a city that functions on the basis fo Green Urbanism is Singapore. The motto of Singapore has been “Singapore – City in a Garden". Singapore has been one of the first densely populated cities that have chose Green Urbanism over other types of Urbanism. As it can be seen on the map below Singapore has many green areas. In Singapore there is over 180 km park system which makes Ecofriendly. (Beatley)

New/Left urbanism is described as emphasising the reproduction of justice and equality through urban planning. New Urbanism focuses on creating areas that are environmental friendly and areas that offer wide variety of job and housing types for members of all kinds of socio-economic backgrounds. (Vermishyan and Michikyan )

An example of a city which functions on the basis of New Urbanism is Cornell, Markham. The arrangement had around 27,000 individuals obliged in the houses including many schools and public venues with shopping availability and general stores. It additionally had a huge retail space, that would have been helpful for individuals living in walkable distance to the stores. Cornell incorporated a local area park, an emergency clinic, a library and the board offices which were completely situated inside walkable distance. (Jagannath)

Modernist urbanism is characterised by the following characteristics; density, circulation, speed, skyscrapers, crowds, over-concentration of human and material goods. In the picture below is displayed an example of a Modern Urbanist city. Looking beyond the picture, we can compare the below displayed plan to Northern Avenue, and we can point out several resemblances between the two. For example, the sharp and straight street, The Pedestrian ally ways. The high rise buildings from both sides of the street.

The Armenian government had the opportunity to choose any of the aforementioned urban planning types. Green Urbanism would benefit Yerevan as it would be focused on creating a community where the inhabitants feel secure and safe. Left urbanism would help Yerevan to reconcile its original plan, designed by Alexander Tamanyan, fairly and justly. However, the Armenian government made the conscious decision to reconcile the plan of Yerevan through Modern Urbanism, which emphasises the visual importance of urban planning but deprioritized the convenience or the benefit of the inhabitants living in those cities. This once more comes to support the claim that the Armenian Government were against low income housing as it did not look glamorous.

The destruction of the seemingly small area has had an enormous effect on the perception of Yerevan. The area connects two of the most important institutions in Yerevan; the Ballet and Opera House and The Republic Square. These are what form Downtown Yerevan. The demolishing of the area and the violent elimination of the inhabitants of the area has affected the authentic depiction of the Armenian people. While one could look at Buzand Street and assume that the people living in Armenia are hard-working and resilient, that although the not so glamorous conditions they live in they are still able to bring themselves and make families and make their country prosper. Currently, outsiders looking at the empty residential buildings and the shopping centres and boutiques in Northern Avenue cannot grasp the authenticity of the Armenian people. This affects the true reflection of Yerevan which subsequently leads to a false narrative that Yerevan and Yerevan’s inhabitants are unmotivated and not hard working. This in a sense has caused the gentrification of Downtown Yerevan. Since the lower class people’s lives were altered for the purpose of making the area more suitable for the Armenian elite. Although, even the Armenian elite cannot inhabit the empty residential buildings in Northern Avenue. 

In conclusion, the destruction of the Northern Avenue had classist motivations which led to Downtown Yerevan becoming the centre for only the Armenian elite to enjoy multiple types of leisure. This affected the image of Yerevan in the outside world negatively, as it depicts Yerevan as a place of empty residential buildings and mindless leisure activities. Therefore, the discourse of the new and the old should be given more importance in the Armenian government than it has done before. 

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“Հյուսիսային Պողոտայի Մենտալ Կերպարը Երևան Քաղաքի Ամբողջական Կերպարի Համատեքստում.” ԵՐԵՎԱՆԻ ՊԱՏՄՈւԹՅԱՆ ԹԱՆԳԱՐԱՆ, 3 Dec. 2019, yhm.am/archives/901.