Thursday 27 March 2014

Armenian Architecture

 
 
 
 
Armenian Architecture at the Melina Cultural Centre, Thisio, Athens.
 
 
 

 
 
Housed in an old hat factory, this is an impressive building. We came upon the exhibition by chance, and decided to go in and have a look and were not disappointed. Most of the buildings were monasteries or churches and what surprised us the most was the fact that the majority seemed to be in totally deserted places, in the middle of nowhere. The buildings were very old, the colour of the stone and roof tiles very mellow after all those centuries, and I just loved the shape of some of those roofs. The landscape was breathtaking.
 




The Holy Mother of God Church of Areni, 1321d.





 
Monastery of Noravank, 13-17th century
 

 
 

 
Monastery of Gandzasar of Artsakh, 1236d
 

 
 


 
Sanahin Monastery, 10-12th century
 
 
 

 
Sanahin Monastery, Western View of Three Nave Narthex, 1211d
 
 

 
 


Marmashen Monastery, 1029d





 
Garni. Columned Basalts
 

 
 

 
The ruins of the bridge of the Akhurian river and convent monastery, 13th century
 
 



 
Lake Van and Aghtanar island
 
 

 
 

 
Church of the Holy Mother of God, Odzun, 16th century
 
 



Mt Arafat from Azat Reservoir.




3 comments:

  1. How absolutely wondrous! What a find of an exhibition. The churches are like sculptures inspired by the landscape. Thank you so much for the introduction - yet another area to pursue, sometime,....

    ReplyDelete
  2. By the way, in trying to track down an exhibition of Howard Hodgkin's work at one of the Gagosian galleries, I found that there is an exhibition of the architect Frank Gehry's Fish on in Athens at present: http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/frank-gehry--february-26-2014
    Just in case your are interested.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree Olga, the churches are wonderful. The exhibition was a real find.

      Thanks for the link to the Gagosian. I was not aware of the exhibition and we would have missed it as I, for some reason, don't go there. But it's on my list of things to do now. By coincidence, I got your second message just as we came back from that area - we had a wonderful day in Kolonaki, looked at art, ceramics, and had a wonderful lunch in Exarheia. Lovely.

      Delete