The life of the largest Armenian architect of the second half of the twentieth century, Jim Torosyan, ended.
It is difficult for me to write about him in the past tense, our communication was very close right up to the very end: the last meeting was in mid-October at his house, my last call from Moscow was literally on the eve of the fatal blow.
The creator of a whole trend in the architecture of Armenian modernism, Jim Torosyan had all sorts of titles and awards (People's Architect of the USSR, Academician of the USSR Academy of Arts and the International Academy of Architecture, laureate of the USSR and Armenia State Prizes) and at the same time the main thing, which cannot be awarded or taken away, was the master of architecture. …
He was a man who also possessed gigantic personal qualities, which can be expressed in the Renaissance term dignitas - dignity.
His authority as an architect raised the prestige of the profession. Perhaps even petty detractors (after all, there is no prophet in his own country) had no arguments against this fact. The big is seen at a distance - not yet in time, but at a physical distance: where Jim Torosyan was known - to the north of Armenia in Georgia, in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, his architecture and his figure of an architect aroused admiration.
The figure of Jim Torosyan undoubtedly stands on a par with the main Armenian architects of the 20th century - Tamanyan, Alabyan, Israelian, Safaryan, whom he considered his teachers.
Tamanyan - as a guru of Armenian architecture, as a guide. Jim Torosyan was the author of the only building in Yerevan, which was made, so to speak, according to the behests of the great founder of the city. I mean the urban development complex Cascade, in accordance with Tamanyan's ideas, open to the city, to Ararat, to Armenia. *
He studied with Halabyan, Israelian and Safaryan directly. With Alabyan - in Moscow graduate school, having inherited the scale of the state and public activities of the architect. Israelian and Safaryan contributed to the disclosure of two facets of his brilliant talent - artistry (in the meaning of “art” - artistic), the creation of national forms and delights of modernist rationalism.
The formation of his creative nature was influenced by meetings with world geniuses I. V. Zholtovsky and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. A year of his life in Italy gave something that an Armenian architect often lacks - the breadth of his professional and philosophical outlook.
In all this combination of facts of life, his own method of the Armenian modernist was formed. I will call it baroque modernism. Bearing in mind what distinguishes the Cascade, the metro, the city hall, and the church. **
He possessed the eye of an experienced researcher, unmistakably recognizing the real and the false (even having lost his physical visual acuity, he “saw” some kind of inner feeling - I have witnessed this more than once) and at the same time possessed the impeccable skill of the artist's hand.
Jim Torosian was a great perfectionist, preaching beauty with every architectural form and every movement of his artistic figure. Indeed, he strove to beautify the world, Armenia. Beauty, in fact, was for him the expression of the meaning of the profession, its philosophy and its component. He was indifferent to the rest of the architecture, if you can call them that - to engineering solutions, to function. I have never heard from him reasoning about these particulars. About the function of a building in the city and in space - yes! Look at the Cascade, and my idea should be clear. He believed that the function of a building can change over time, it is like a natural process of the life of a building. I don't know if he designed a cottage or an apartment? In any case, I don't know about the construction. He was definitely not interested in particulars. In terms of space and time, he felt quite confident.
Jim Torosyan went the path of a modernist in a very different way. In the beginning - a purely western direction. Then - an appeal to his own, Armenian. Probably, it is so natural and correct when it comes to comprehending global meanings and forms. This is what Tamanyan did, combining the classics with the Armenian, in this way Halabyan, Kochar and Mazmanyan went, connecting with the Armenian avant-garde of the 1920s, this is how Rafael Isrelyan walked through several stages of architecture.
In the early period of his creative work, he built an apartment building, *** which became his main failure. This house, misplaced in urban planning, was at the same time the result of a modernist utopia - in how many cities in the world were similar Corbusian "dwelling units" built.
The minimalist glass façade, immaculately lined, collapsed at the first touch of its inhabitants. It was an experience that turned him away from the prose of the profession. Undoubtedly, his calling was different, and he himself understood this.
He created the architecture of unique buildings, monuments, steles, memorial plaques, which adorned the Armenian landscape with huge massifs and small arabesques, entering the crowded cities and lonely towering in open spaces. The architecture is minimalist in its graphic composition and at the same time baroque in masterly traced forms. He strove to create an architecture by which Armenia would be recognized. At the same time, the modern architectural world does not at all know the architecture of Jim Torosyan, the creator of one of the variants of national modernism. The Iron Curtain did its job - the world, including the architectural one, was divided. And although the existing commonality is now more obvious, the ongoing process was one-sided - we could not convey much from us.
However, there are its buildings, its monuments, according to which the architectural world will have to learn about the great master who lived in the small country of Armenia, who in 2013, at the age of 87, completed his last building in the style of Baroque modernism.
Last May we went to Echmiadzin with him for the last time. The church was finished. The construction of the wall in memory of the repressed clergy was also completed. This, it seemed, was not such a significant structure, I really liked it. In the plate dividing the territory of the monastery and the city, and with a narrow end directed towards the round square, one can see the poetics of early modernism. The one that is in the wall of the Nalbandyan monument, **** in the terrace above the Cascade. When we left the territory of the monastery and drove around the wall from the outside, directly opposite the peaks of Aragats sparkled. Something made me turn around - from behind, strictly along the axis, stood the gigantic peak of Big Ararat, such as it happens only in Echmiadzin.
Karen Balyan, professor, corresponding member International Academy of Architecture (IAAM)
* The "Armenia" cascade on the main urban planning axis of Yerevan was built in collaboration with architects S. Gurzadyan and A. Mkhitaryan in 1980-2000.
** Co-authors of J. Torosyan: Yerevan City Hall buildings (1980-2000) - arch. R. Martirosyan, I. Cholakhyan; metro station "Republic Square" in Yerevan (1981) - architect. M. Minasyan; churches in Etchmiadzin (2013) - architect. E. Ohanyan.
*** Co-author of a residential building in Yerevan (1963) - architect. L. Gevorgyan
**** Monument to poet M. Nalbandyan in Yerevan (1965), sculptor N. Nikoghosyan
