Reflections of Modernism

The world is a crazy place, but windows - you find them everywhere. Currently, I'm looking at quite similar windows in Zagreb (more on Zagreb at a later date), but the architecture of the socialist world reborn as capitalist societies is quite universal. Here we see a postmodern glass facade reflecting an old soviet building block in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia.

Armenia always strikes me as a very warm country, where the choice of building materials is concerned. The soviets adapted their prefabricated units to have the historic red stone shells, and the post soviet modern buildings nowadays often emulate the historical style, only larger bigger and (not) better. It almost feels like the architects and builders in Armenia collectively decided on a certain aesthetic to the country - weird how that happens. And luckily for me, I finally got to see famous mount Ararat this time around.

What a great mountain! Even with the looming husks of abandoned construction projects in the way. Sadly, you need a permit to climb it from the Turkish officials,as the holy mountain of Armenia largely is in turkey, a looming reminder of the injustice of the Armenian genocide and the ongoing issues that follow from that tragic moment.

The Turkish border also accompanied this last trip there, as I went to Gyumri, the second largest city of the country, where I once again dove into Armenian culture and politics - and picked up the thread from my visit to the Women's Resource Center in Yerevan two years ago by visiting the Women's Rights House this time around. There's more stories to come from this visit the next few days, so stay tuned! And with that I've drifted far enough from photographic architecture, so let's close this post on that.