Toros Toramanian ( hy, Թորոս Թորամանեան; 1864 – March 1, 1934) was a prominent Armenian architect and

architectural historian An architectural historian is a person who studies and writes about the history of architecture, and is regarded as an authority on it. Professional requirements As many architectural historians are employed at universities and other facilities ...

. He is considered "the father of Armenian architectural historiography."

Biography

Toramanian was born in 1864, in the town of

Şebinkarahisar Şebinkarahisar is a town in and the administrative seat for Şebinkarahisar District, Giresun Province in the Black Sea region of northeastern Turkey. Name The 6th century Byzantine historian Procopius writes that the Roman general Pompey captu ...

(Շապին-Գարահիսար in Armenian),

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. He studied architecture at Academy of fine arts in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

, and later at Sorbonne,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, and then he worked on the detailed study of the remains of medieval Armenian architectural monuments. Toramanian's scholarly work paved the way for the scholar,

Josef Strzygowski Josef Rudolph Thomas Strzygowski (March 7, 1862 – January 2, 1941) was a Polish-Austrian art historian known for his theories promoting influences from the art of the Near East on European art, for example that of Early Christian Armenian arch ...

, who, after a long and detailed study of Christian architecture, concluded that Armenian architecture had a significant role in the development of Byzantine and later of West European architecture. In 1920, during the

Turkish–Armenian War The Turkish–Armenian war ( hy, Հայ-թուրքական պատերազմ), known in Turkey as the Eastern Front ( tr, Doğu Cephesi) of the Turkish War of Independence, was a conflict between the First Republic of Armenia and the Turkish Na ...

, Toramanian lost a great part of his scientific study. He died in 1934 in

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...

and was buried on the bank of

Hrazdan Hrazdan ( hy, wikt:Հրազդան, Հրազդան), is a town and urban municipal community in Armenia serving as the administrative centre of Kotayk Province, located northeast of the capital Yerevan. As of the 2011 census, the population of the ...

river.

Works

* ''Niuter Hay Jartarapetutian Patmutian'' (''Material for the History of Armenian Architecture''), Vol. 1 (Yerevan: 1942) and Vol. 2 (Yerevan: 1948)

Biography

Works

References

See also