Yerevan Opera Theatre
Alexander Tamanian · Yerevan, Armenia · 1933
Alexander Tamanian’s Yerevan Opera Theatre is a circular monumental complex that combines performance venues with a defining role in the city plan. The stone-clad exterior uses arcades, terraces and a broad drum-like mass rather than a conventional frontal theatre façade, allowing the building to address the surrounding public spaces in multiple directions. The first auditorium opened in 1933, while additional portions were completed later. The opera became a central work in Tamanian’s transformation of Yerevan and an important synthesis of Soviet civic planning, Armenian stone construction and restrained classical monumentality.