By Alen Amirkhanian In the 1990’s I had the chance to live in Armenia for a few years. It was my first time in Yerevan. Those were times of hardship and suffering for Armenians: the Spitak earthquake of 1988, the war over Nogorno Karabagh with its casualties and economic blockades, and the country's newly gained independence that complicated matters further. But all of this is familiar recent history, fresh memory.  What I would like to share are my observations of Yerevan, the physical city; the remnants of an ancient city that was fundamentally reformulated in the 70 years of Soviet reign. Some of these observations may sound simplistic, some politically incorrect, and some controversial. But I pray that you read them with kindness as I have written them with kindness, hoping for a civil and mutually respectful resolution to a recent civic crisis in the capital—the plight of Cinema Moscow's Open-Air Hall. Observation One: Yerevan Was Loved, and It Was for People and Culture What I saw was that in the Soviet era great care and love had gone into molding Yerevan into a city that was for people and culture. The city wasn’t designed to aggrandize the state. In fact cultural institutions occupied the dominant points in the city. Even in the Republic Square, home to the highest governmental offices, the National Gallery stood taller and more prominent that all. The governmental buildings seem to stand hand-in-hand guarding the National Gallery, an institution established to preserve the best in the fine arts this culture produced. Tamanyan’s suggested Northern Ave., which was not yet built, was connecting the National Gallery and the Opera, making them the highest structures in the vicinity. Yerevan was also not designed to be an industrial city. Industrial cities leave the distinct impression that people are yet another input in the production process, like raw materials and fuel.  There were no doubt industrial districts but they were not what the city revolved around. As importantly, it wasn’t a city designed for automobiles. You could easily walk everywhere, esp. in the center. And you could take multiple routes to get to one place. For longer distances, the trams, the metro, the buses, and the minibuses got you everywhere. There was an abundance of public space, which people loved to use. These spaces ranged from wide sidewalks to semi private “hayats” to lush grand parks. Monuments to political figures were used sparingly. Stalin’s mega monument was removed soon after his death and replaced by Mother Armenia. The most prominent one left was Lenin’s statue in the Republic Square. But that had already been removed by the time I arrived. The most prominent urban sites were dedicated to painters, musicians, and poets. Every step of the way, there was a plaque on a building, usually carved gorgeously, marking the residence of a scientist, a painter, a poet. The city was celebrating its achievements in the sciences and the arts one stone at a time, one statue at a time, one public square at time. Observation Two: Valuable History Was Destroyed I learned that valuable historical structures and neighborhoods were destroyed to build what I was seeing. And that saddened me. In my judgment these were grave errors. Gone was the St. Boghos Bedros Church where Cinema Moscow now stands. Gone was the beautiful Russian Church where now Shahumian’s monument stands. Gone were the remnants of the Yerevan fortress, a bitter reminder of this people’s colonial past. Entry into the fortress was forbidden to the Christians, the Armenians. It was reserved for the Persian governors, their emissaries and merchants. And perhaps because of this bitter past we should have preserved it. We should have preserved it as a reminder of a time when Armenians lacked freedom of movement within their own lands, a restriction imposed by a foreign power. Gone also were the bazaar area adjacent to the fortress with its large square and connecting narrow and winding streets. But fortunately the Blue-Domed Mosque had survived though it lacked its former grandeur. It was squeezed in-between new and insensitive structures, as if accommodated grudgingly. I thought, surely they could have built the new city without destroying the old. Maybe there was still hope to preserve the center with Lalayan Street and its web of narrow roads and magical courtyards that were still intact in the 1990’s. If not every individual building, maybe the spirit of that historic center could be saved. The debates over the plight of that neighborhood were raging in the Soviet times. After all Tamanyan had planned the Northern Avenue with full intent of building it. It turns out that the collapse of the Soviet Union only delayed the demise of that area. When the real-estate boom of the 2000’s bulldozed in, the destruction of the city’s valuable past continued. Ostensibly, government officials went through the mechanics of numbering the stones that were removed from the old buildings, with the pretense of saving it for reconstitution at a later time. Today many people wonder where those numbered stones are “preserved.” Observation three: There Were Modern Treasures in Yerevan I took ample walks in the streets of Yerevan. I was mesmerized by the Kaskad, I was moved by Tsitsernakaberd, and I was enchanted by the Komitas Chamber Music Hall—all modern treasures.  But one architectural gem managed to take my breath away, Cinema Moscow’s Open-Air Hall. It was a structure that conveyed the sense of an advanced country willing to courageously engage in an aesthetic dialogue with the world at large. The Open-Air Hall was built in the 1960’s, rooted in the rich art movement of Constructivism. Though the movement was abruptly switched off by Stalin in the early 1930's, it experienced a restrained resurgence in the Khrushchev era, in the 1960's. onstructivism has fascinated and inspired countless artists and art institutions in the West. It continues to do so to this day. Super stars in the today's world of architecture, Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas among them, are directly inspired by the work of the Constructivists. Most major modern art museums in the West include in their collections paintings, collages, or assemblages from this movement: MOMA in New York, Tate Modern in London, Hammer in Los Angeles, and the list goes on. My first exposure to the Constructivists took place in the 1980s, before the breakup of the Soviet Union, at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The Walker had organized a superb exhibition on this movement and the exhibition was to tour many cities in the U.S. Built in the 1960’s, during the brief revival of Constructivism, the Open-Air Hall represented the best and the highest that movement had to offer. It waved a defiant goodbye to the heavy, formal, and at times oppressive Stalinist structures. It also decidedly switched direction from the playful classicism of Tamanyan and his followers. After the Stalinian horror, it summoned a freedom of spirit-collective spirit-that strove to heal. It did so with breathtaking simplicity and elegance. In it’s elegance it was only matched by Tzizernakaberd. It was an exquisite needlework in the fabric of this formalist, 19th-century-looking city. It was a supreme example of how you seamlessly co-locate the aesthetics of the old with the aesthetics of the new, the values of the old with the values of the new. From a compositional point of view the Open-Air Hall achieved something amazing. Within the same structure it conveyed a sense of stability and flight-opposites in one. It became an ingenious antithesis to the Opera complex down the street, striking a perfect balance. The Open-Air Hall wasn’t grand. It wasn’t symbolic. It wasn’t historical. It was pure joy-collective joy.  And it was designed for a lowbrow, plebian art: cinema. All the best that the Constructivists achieved was summarized by this work. And I was thinking what a gift to future generations. Generation after generation of Armenian youth will grow up with this structure in their everyday experience. If only every generation can give to the future just one gift like this. I suppose I was too naïve. Even masterpieces like the Open-Air Hall can be subject to the arbitrary whims of powers that be.  On March 4, 2010, through an opaque and questionable process, the Government of Armenia adopted a decision to remove the Cinema Moscow Open-Air Hall from the list of cultural-historical structures. Its entry into the list had ensured its preservation. With this decision, the road was paved for the destruction of the Open-Air Hall. The current owner of the space has donated the site to the Armenian Apostolic Church, which has plans to tear down the Open-Air Hall and “rebuild” the St. Boghos Bedros Church on that site. The shock of all of this is hard to put in words. At the mildest the new plans smacked of barbarism. As the noted architectural historian Samvel Karapetyan has persuasively argued, from a restoration point of view it is absurd to think that the St. Boghos-Bedros can be rebuilt. The location of the church torn down in the 1930s may only partially overlap with that of the Open-Air Hall, if at all. As far as anyone knows no building materials have survived from the church edifice. So what will be built is something entirely new in a location that is entirely new. So the effort has nothing to do with rebuilding the St. Boghos-Bedros Church. Since news of the removal of the Open-Air Hall from the list emerged, a wildfire of grassroots protest has built up against the demolition of the Hall. At the time of writing this article 5,000 people had already joined “SAVE Cinema Moscow’s Open-Air Hall” on Facebook. The numbers are growing by the hour. The organizers have also started circulating petitions for signatures. So far they’ve collected 14,000 signatures against the demolition. Whether Armenians need more churches or not should remain beyond the current discussion. That discussion sidetracks us from the core issue at hand--our obligation to preserving the valuable past. The Open-Air Hall is a superlative example of the valuable past. Without a doubt people who want to pray and light candles should have a place to do so. But to offer them such a place by destroying cultural gems is something worthy of the Taliban and not the Armenian Apostolic Church. I pray that the Church will reconsider its decision. I pray that countless generations will walk by the Open-Air Hall and be touched by its warm magic and ponder the relationship of the old and the new, of the past and present, of history and the future. END Alen Amirkhanian is an urban planner who lives in the past, present, but more often in the future.