location: 40.19120993100292, 44.51558549364441
architects: Jim Torosyan, Aslan Mkhitaryan, Sargis Gurzadyan
date: 1970s – present
On the northern edge of the Kentron district, in central Yerevan, the Cascade rises as a broad artificial slope composed of stairways and terraces with fountains, sculptures and stone carvings. It forms a key segment of the city’s north–south axis, extending the urban composition from the lower centre towards the Kanaker plateau. At the same time, its upper platforms offer one of Yerevan’s most iconic panoramas, revealing the city below and, on clear days, Mount Ararat beyond it. This view is not incidental: the complex was designed to restore a visual and pedestrian relationship between the capital and the mountain, which holds profound cultural and symbolic significance for Armenians as both a national landmark and a biblical reference. Although Ararat lies outside the borders of present-day Armenia, it remains deeply embedded in Armenian cultural memory as part of the historical homeland, whose political geography was reconfigured in the early 20th century following the 1921 Treaty of Kars and the incorporation of Eastern Anatolia into the Turkish Republic.
Development and Construction History
The idea of extending Yerevan’s main north–south axis towards the northern hills originated in the city’s master plan, developed in 1924 by architect Alexander Tamanyan, a key figure in the formation of its modern layout. His plan reimagined Yerevan as a compact, radially organised capital centred on a monumental civic core, from which a system of broad boulevards would extend like spokes, structuring future growth and establishing a clear urban hierarchy. Within this framework, the north–south axis played a particular role as a visual and spatial link between the centre and the surrounding topography. It connected the planned urban core with the elevated northern plateau and, in the opposite direction, with the wider landscape of Ararat, already outside the country’s administrative territory. The projected avenue was intended to open the city towards this landscape and culminate in a strong linear ascent, but it remained incomplete for decades.
The first attempt to mark this future ascent appeared after Tamanyan Street was laid out in the early 1960s. At the foot of the hill, a broad stone fountain wall was constructed, with water flowing through seven rectangular openings into a large basin below. Behind the water curtain was a mosaic by sculptor Derenik Danielyan: a winding green line and stylised fish set against a blue and turquoise background. Wide stairways flanked the fountain, and a path continued from them up the otherwise undeveloped slope. This modest, single-level structure was already known as a “cascade”, although it did not yet overcome the considerable difference in height between the centre and the plateau. Instead, it established a public threshold at the end of the new boulevard and gave the still-unfinished urban axis its first architectural conclusion.
The future upper endpoint was defined in 1967, when Jim Torosyan and Sargis Gurzadyan completed a memorial commemorating the 50th anniversary of Soviet rule. After Armenia gained independence, the monument became known as Reborn Armenia. Raised above the city on the edge of the Kanaker plateau, it combined two monumental stone terraces with a four-sided granite obelisk that ultimately reached a height of 65 metres. The lower platform was designed as a viewing terrace overlooking central Yerevan and Mount Ararat. Although conceived as an independent commemorative structure, its position on the northern edge of the city effectively established the upper terminus of the future Cascade axis.
Together, the fountain below and the memorial above established the two endpoints of the future complex, but they remained separated by a steep and largely undeveloped slope. Around 1972, shortly after becoming Yerevan’s chief architect, Jim Torosyan began developing a new project with Sargis Gurzadyan and Aslan Mkhitaryan. The early versions have not been fully documented, but by the middle of the decade the original idea of a convenient public stairway had expanded into a monumental cultural centre embedded within the hill. The small fountain no longer corresponded to the scale of this new conception and was superseded by an ensemble of terraces, exhibition spaces, escalators and open-air venues.
Constructing such a complex was technically demanding. The reinforced-concrete structure had to be inserted into a steep natural slope, while the central escalator hall divided the construction site into two sections and complicated the movement of machinery and materials. Work advanced gradually throughout the first half of the 1980s. By April 1985, white travertine slabs had been installed across the two lower courtyards, and construction had reached the third. The unusually large facing panels were fixed mechanically with anchors and concrete rather than attached with adhesive. Completion dates were repeatedly postponed: the first section was expected to open in 1985, but the complex remained unfinished in 1988. After the Spitak earthquake, construction resources were redirected towards emergency rebuilding, as the country’s engineering and material capacities were mobilised for reconstruction. The subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and Armenia’s economic crisis brought work on the upper section of the Cascade to a halt.
No substantial construction resumed during the 1990s. Nevertheless, the realised section remained part of the city’s everyday infrastructure. During the severe energy and transport shortages of the early post-Soviet period, its already installed escalators operated for several hours a day, helping residents move between the centre and the elevated northern neighbourhoods. Other parts of the unfinished interior were temporarily occupied by cafés and a nightclub, while exposed concrete structures remained above the completed terraces.
A new stage began in 2002, when the city reached an agreement with Armenian-American art collector and philanthropist Gerard Cafesjian on the renovation and cultural reuse of the complex. Over the following seven years, the completed structures were repaired, the escalators restored and the internal halls adapted as exhibition spaces. The Cafesjian Center for the Arts opened in 2009, presenting works from Cafesjian’s collection alongside the original architecture and monumental art of the Cascade. The intervention revitalised the accessible lower section, but the intended continuation towards the hilltop memorial remained unfinished.
Several projects were subsequently proposed for the missing upper section. Architect David Hotson developed a design for a new museum building, but its implementation was suspended during the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. Aslan Mkhitaryan, the last surviving member of the original architectural team, later prepared alternative proposals for completing the ascent. In 2024, the unfinished upper territory was returned to Yerevan Municipality, and in December 2025 the municipality signed an agreement with GTB Development for the Cascade Cultural Hub, designed in collaboration with the studio of French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte. The programme is conceived as a continuation of the Cascade’s terraced system, extending the stepped sequence of platforms into the upper slope and organising it as a layered composition containing a contemporary art museum, additional exhibition halls and a concert venue for approximately 1,000 spectators.
Artistic and Cultural Programme of the Cascade
Although the Cascade remains unfinished as of 2026, its present built extent is sufficient for it to be understood as a coherent architectural and artistic whole. The realised complex climbs approximately 118 metres along the slope. Its external composition combines three distinct scales of steps: four principal courtyard-terraces with fountains form the centre of the ensemble; narrower pedestrian stairways run along both sides; and broad, deep steps beside them resemble the tiers of an amphitheatre facing the city. This arrangement supports several forms of use at once: direct ascent, slow promenading, resting, informal gathering and looking back towards the panorama of Yerevan and Ararat.
The walls enclosing the courtyard-terraces are faced with pale travertine and articulated through large-scale geometric carvings. Their architectural language combines modernist reinforced-concrete construction with forms derived from Armenian and Urartian visual traditions. Vines, pomegranates, interlaced bands, trees of life and khachkar-like compositions appear in abstracted and enlarged forms. Natural elements, particularly water and planting, play an equally important role in structuring the spatial experience of the terraces. Water features are concentrated along their central axes and within the fountain basins at their cores, while linear planting beds define the edges of the courtyards and the transitional zones between the built terraces and the surrounding hillside.
The thematic programme assigned a distinct subject to each courtyard. Although it changed during the design process, a later scheme organised the ascent as a historical and ideological sequence. The first terrace was devoted to the history of Armenia, the second to its rebirth, the third to Russian-Armenian friendship, and the fourth to friendship among the peoples of the Soviet Union. An earlier description published in 1980 instead referred to spaces devoted to the historic architecture, sculpture and decorative arts of Armenia, the culture of Soviet Armenia, and children’s artistic production. These variations show that the Cascade was conceived both as a narrative of Armenian cultural continuity and as a Soviet public monument.
Inside the hill, the complex contains a parallel system of circulation and cultural spaces. Beneath the western side, a sequence of escalator halls, accompanied by conventional stairs, connects the principal terrace levels. The central volumes between the courtyards accommodate galleries, exhibition halls, a museum shop and cafés. The Cafesjian Center introduced a further artistic layer into these internal and external spaces. Contemporary works are displayed in the escalator galleries, while the restored halls serve as venues for temporary exhibitions and events. Rather than completely replacing the original cultural programme, the museum adapted its infrastructure and expanded the Cascade’s role as a setting for encounters between architecture and art.
The internal halls also contain two of the ensemble’s most important works of late Soviet monumental art. Grigor Khanjyan created a triptych devoted to the Armenian alphabet, the Battle of Vardanank and the rebirth of Armenia. Begun in the 1980s, the work was completed between the 1990s and 2004; after Khanjyan’s death, Henrik Mamyan executed its final section from the artist’s designs. In another hall, sculptor Artashes Hovsepyan produced a monumental tuff relief based on Hakob Kojoyan’s illustrations for the Armenian epic David of Sassoun. Created between 1980 and 1985, the relief measures approximately seven metres in height and twenty metres in length, enlarging 36 episodes from Kojoyan’s graphic cycle into an extensive carved narrative.
The approach to the Cascade begins at the intersection of Moskovyan and Tamanyan streets, marked by the monument to Alexander Tamanyan, installed in 1974 and created by sculptor Artashes Hovsepyan and architect Seda Petrosyan. From the monument, the pedestrian avenue of Tamanyan Street leads directly towards the monumental stairway, gradually revealing the complex at its northern end. Following the Cafesjian renovation, the avenue became an open-air sculpture garden, combining lawns, flowerbeds and fountains with works by international artists including Fernando Botero, Lynn Chadwick, Jaume Plensa and Barry Flanagan. The linear garden therefore functions both as the visual foreground of the Cascade and as the first part of its contemporary artistic programme.
Today, the realised Cascade is both a major cultural institution and one of Yerevan’s most intensively used public spaces. Its stairs provide a practical urban route, while its terraces function as viewpoints and gathering places. The unfinished upper slope, however, continues to reveal the interrupted history of a project developed across several political periods. Completing it therefore involves more than filling an empty construction site: any new intervention must preserve the original urban idea of connecting the centre and the plateau through a public landscape in which movement, art, nature and the panorama of Yerevan and Ararat remain inseparable.
Sources and Further Reading
Bronovitskaya, Anna; Palmin, Yuri; Markus, Elena; Balyan, Karen. Ереван: архитектура советского модернизма. 1955–1991 [Yerevan: Architecture of Soviet Modernism, 1955–1991]. Moscow, 2026.
Bykov, V. “Архитектор Джим Торосян” [“Architect Jim Torosyan”], in: Архитектура СССР, no. 5, 1980, p. 57–62.
Balyan, Karen. Джим Торосян — мастер архитектуры [Jim Torosyan: Master of Architecture] (2014) Archi.ru
Mural by Grigor Khanjyan (2009) Cafesjian Center for the Arts
Sasuntsi Davit Relief (2009) Cafesjian Center for the Arts
text and photos by Elena Lisitsyna