Abstract

This chapter charts the work of Armenian architects working in different spaces and time, analysing their engagement with the stylistic approach of revivalism. It looks to the example of Leon Nafilian, an Armenian architect who graduated from the Beaux-Arts in Paris and his revivalist works in early twentieth-century Istanbul, Paris, Cairo and Yerevan. It compares with the case of Leon Guregian, an Armenian educated in Italy and his works for early twentieth-century international expositions. It also looks to the better-known examples of Nigogos and Serkis Balyan, who were the Parisian-educated architects to the Ottoman sultans in the nineteenth century. These case studies stress how revivalism, although of a distinctly European academic origin, was refashioned in a cosmopolitan way to different settings by these Armenians. This helps to distance the study of 'other' revivalisms from the rise of Nationalism paradigm to which they have remained lodged in past scholarship.