The Transformation of Green Zones in Yerevan, Armenia: Domestication of Nature, Times of Ruination and the Idea of 'New Hanging Gardens'
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Published:2023-06
Issue:2
Volume:16
Page:291-324
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ISSN:1973-3739
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Container-title:Global Environment
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language:en
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Short-container-title:Global Environment
Author:
Conrad Heiko1,
Fehlings Susanne2
Affiliation:
1. Graduated in theology and oriental studies and now works part-time as a religious education teacher. He visits Armenia regularly for longer studies and research and spent one year at the Matenadaran in Yerevan in 2009. In 2017–18, Conrad was employed as a research assistant at the historical seminar at the Goethe University Frankfurt, in 2020 as an honorary lecturer at the Institute for History at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn and in 2021 he worked as a DAAD short-term lecturer at Yerevan...
2. Studied anthropology, archaeology and art history in Tübingen, Paris and Moscow, and has conducted fieldwork in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Ukraine since 2007. She received the Venia Legendi in Anthropology at the Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main and currently works as a lecturer and senior researcher at the Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropology and the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Fehling’s main interests...
Abstract
Abstract
The layout of the contemporary Armenian capital Yerevan is based on a 1924 master plan by the Soviet Armenian architect Alexander Tamanyan, who was inspired by the English concept of the 'garden city'. Still, the city has a much longer 'green tradition' that is documented for pre-Soviet times and might reach back to - or at least allude to - the parks and gardens of ancient Mesopotamia. In this article, we give insights into this local green tradition. First, we describe the changing attitude towards the city and urban green space and the city's and city dwellers' changing relationship to nature more generally. We then introduce the Cascade, a Soviet fountain structure, as an example to illustrate some of the recent developments and to map out the tangible and intangible links with the ancient past. Finally, building on our interpretation of the ancient and recent past of Yerevan, we make some suggestions for how to (re)turn the Cascade into a green project that is both traditional and at the same time modern.
Publisher
Liverpool University Press
Subject
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law,History,Global and Planetary Change