• index /
  • residences /
    • skyhouse_1. introduction
    • skyhouse_2. slide
    • skyhouse_3. entry / lightwell
    • skyhouse_4. living room
    • skyhouse_5. a bedroom
    • skyhouse_6. another bedroom
    • skyhouse_7. video tour
    • a townhouse on park avenue
    • a duplex apartment on fifth avenue
    • the penthouse of the woolworth building
    • a villa on saint barthes
    • a mountaintop house in the hudson valley
    • an apartment on park avenue
    • a house in the berkshires
    • a duplex penthouse in soho
    • a house addition in princeton
    • a duplex loft in soho
    • a triplex loft in soho
    • a penthouse on central park west
    • a loft in greenwich village
    • a townhouse on long island
  • religious and cultural institutions /
    • the church of saint sarkis
    • the saint sarkis community center
    • the cascade gardens cultural center
    • the united nations general assembly suite
  • art galleries and museums /
    • ordovas gallery_new york
    • cascade gardens_yerevan, armenia
    • sculpture center_new york
    • eyebeam atelier_new york
  • profile /
  • news /
  • contact
DAVID HOTSON_ARCHITECT
  • index /
  • residences /
    • skyhouse_1. introduction
    • skyhouse_2. slide
    • skyhouse_3. entry / lightwell
    • skyhouse_4. living room
    • skyhouse_5. a bedroom
    • skyhouse_6. another bedroom
    • skyhouse_7. video tour
    • a townhouse on park avenue
    • a duplex apartment on fifth avenue
    • the penthouse of the woolworth building
    • a villa on saint barthes
    • a mountaintop house in the hudson valley
    • an apartment on park avenue
    • a house in the berkshires
    • a duplex penthouse in soho
    • a house addition in princeton
    • a duplex loft in soho
    • a triplex loft in soho
    • a penthouse on central park west
    • a loft in greenwich village
    • a townhouse on long island
  • religious and cultural institutions /
    • the church of saint sarkis
    • the saint sarkis community center
    • the cascade gardens cultural center
    • the united nations general assembly suite
  • art galleries and museums /
    • ordovas gallery_new york
    • cascade gardens_yerevan, armenia
    • sculpture center_new york
    • eyebeam atelier_new york
  • profile /
  • news /
  • contact

a cultural center in yerevan armenia

The most prominent civic feature of the city center of Yerevan, Armenia is the Cascade, a monumental, 300-meter-high terraced structure with gardens, fountains, and continuous stairs on its exterior and galleries, shops, and public escalators inside. Sheathed in white travertine, the Cascade is a well-used public amenity for Yerevan as well as a component of urban pedestrian circulation, connecting the downtown Kentron district with the neighborhoods on the hills above. However, the Cascade was never finished; construction began in the 1970s but was suspended during the turmoil of the 1980s, leaving the upper third of the structure unfinished. In the late 2000s, David Hotson_Architect proposed a design for a museum complex to fill the hole at the top of the Cascade; this complex, the Cafesjian Center for the Arts, began construction but was placed on hold in 2009 following the global financial crisis. At a moment when consensus is growing to finally complete the Cascade, the “Cascade Gardens Cultural Center" proposal represents the further development of these existing plans for a modern Yerevan in the midst of great transformation.

The fundamental architectural operation is to extend the sloping plane of the existing Cascade steps upward, forming an inclined datum that reaches the monumental terrace at the top of the hill. The surface of this datum is articulated as a public garden, continuing the steps from the existing Cascade and offering Yerevan’s residents a variety of protected spaces for free civic use. Verdant enclosures of native flowers, shrubs, and orchard trees, interspersed with fountains and benches carved from local tufa stone, echo the material language of Yerevan's characteristic trellis gardens, bowers, squares, and courtyards.

The public facilities of the cultural center are concentrated below the new datum, respecting the existing character of Yerevan's downtown skyline and preserving sightlines up from Tamanyan Park at the bottom and down from the monument terrace at the top. Core to the proposal is a continuous network of publicly accessible escalators, completing the pedestrian route to the top of the hill and carrying visitors through a shifting sequence of dramatic views—both interior, through the nested volumes and program spaces of the Cultural Center, and exterior, framing Yerevan's symbolic and cultural landmarks.

Courtyards and terraces bring light down into gallery spaces and offer peaceful, verdant spaces for cafes, restaurants, outdoor film screenings and performances, and informal social gatherings both formal and informal. Travertine and tufa finishes place the new architectural forms in the lineage of the historical Cascade; and thick plantings of native trees fill in the barren ground currently surrounding the complex, creating a green corridor connecting to Victory Park, which overlooks downtown Yerevan.

Rather than a transformation, Cascade Gardens represents an extension of the vibrant cultural space the citizens of Yerevan have already created on the Cascade itself; a refined place for everyday recreation and civic life as well as dramatic encounters with a familiar city viewed through striking new architectural frames. In this union of tradition and change, the Cascade Gardens Cultural Center reflects a Yerevan, and an Armenia, poised at the moment of transition between a Soviet past and a global future filled with both challenge and great promise.

CSC_Ararat Window_F1 2x3 copy.jpg
CSC_240910_Overview 2_IG_DH Edit Color.jpg
CSC_240827_Museum Entry Seating Area_crop.jpg
CSC_240917_Reflecting Pool_IG_46_Crop.jpg
CSC_240917_Reflecting Pool_IG_45_crop.jpg
CSC_240829_Refelcting Pool_Crop.jpg
240802_Reflecting Pool_6 crop.jpg
CSC_240827_Reflecting Pool_crop.jpg
CSC_240910_Reflecting Pool_IG (1).jpg
CSC_240910_Threshold_IG.jpg
CSC_240910_Courtyard 5_IG.jpg
CSC_240909_Courtyard_IG copy.jpg
CSC_240918_Cinema Courtyard 7_16x9_DH Edit.jpg
CSC_240910_Courtyard 30_IG.jpg
CSC_240910_Lobby 2_IG copy.jpg
CSC_240918_Lobby 3_73 - Photo_DH Edit SQ.jpg
CSC_240917_Mother Armenia_IG_21_DH Edit_SQ.jpg
CSC_240723_Monument View_Skewed.jpg
CSC_240910_Courtyard 31_IG copy.jpg
CSC_240910_Courtyard 3_IG.jpg
CSC_240917_Ararat_IG_28 - Photo SQ.jpg
CSC_240917_Ararat_IG_32 - Photo  SQ.jpg
CSC_240917_Ararat_IG_30 - Photo.jpg
CSC_240723_Ararat Window Render_C1.jpg
CSC_240910_Overview 2_IG_DH Edit FINAL Crop.jpg