Alexander Tamanian

Who was Alexander Tamanian?

Alexander Tamanian was a Russian-born Armenian neoclassical architect, well known for his work in the city of Yerevan.

He was born in the city of Yekaterinodar in 1878 in the family of a banker. He graduated from the St Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1904. His works portrayed sensitive and artistic neoclassical trends popular in those years. Some of his early works included the mansion of V. P. Kochubei in Tsarskoye Selo, 1911–1912; the house of Prince S. A. Scherbatov in Novinski Boulevard in Moscow, 1911–1913; the village railway employees housing and the tuberculosis sanatorium at the Prozorovskaya station near Moscow, 1913–1923; central workshops of Kazan railway in Lyubertsy, 1916.

He became an Academician of Architecture in 1914, in 1917 he was elected as the Vice-President of the Academy of Arts. In 1923 he moved to Yerevan, heading the new construction effort in the republic. He was the chief engineer of the local Council of People's Commissars and was a member of the CEC of the Armenian SSR, sponsored the construction industry, designed the layouts of towns and villages including Leninakan, Stepanakert, Nor-Bayazet and Ahta-ahpara, Echmiadzin, and others.