Of Churches and Cinemas: the case of the open-air hall of Yerevan's “Moscow Cinema”

Of Churches and Cinemas: the case of the open-air hall of Yerevan’s “Moscow Cinema”

The “Moscow Cinema” was a prominent feature of the Soviet cityscape. Most every self-respecting city in the Soviet Union and throughout the East Bloc had one, though many have since fallen prey to the wrecker’s ball. From the 1930s until the end of the century, a Moscow Cinema was in some sense the equivalent of a Saints Peter’s and Paul’s church throughout Christendom. The comparison may seem far fetched but the ideological architecture of churches and cinemas have certain points of resemblance – which is why it is telling to note how the two institutions, sacred and profane, have run up against one another in the ongoing dispute about the fate of the open-air projection hall, sometimes referred to as the “summer cinema,” of the Moscow Cinema in downtown Yerevan, Armenia.

On 25 February 2010, Yerevan City Council announced that the Moscow Cinema was to yield, without monetary compensation, the land of its open-air hall to the Holy Seat of Ejmiatsin, which was authorized to tear down the outdoor amphitheatre in order to reconstruct a 17^th century church (Surb Poghos-Petros – Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s) that once stood on the same site, before being demolished to make way for the cinema. The announcement elicited an outpouring of public indignation – within two days, 2000 people had signed a petition on Facebook condemning this further act of “cultural vandalism,” a month later they were 5000. Apparently, the 1970s minimalist structure enjoyed an unexpected degree of popular support – it was Yerevan’s only outdoor cinema, and drew large audiences during warm summer evenings. However, a Church-friendly website, has called the project “an act of historic justice” and the Armenian Church itself has argued that the people of Yerevan “need more places to worship.” Churches are not in short supply – there are four within 300 metres of the site – and Moscow Cinema is one of two remaining, still-functioning movie houses in the city. But such arguments are perhaps beside the point. It seems the issue is more of a litmus test as to the city’s architectural future.

The case is particularly interesting because it focuses on and links even as it opposes cinematic and ecclesiastic architectural forms. Cinema was the pre-eminent mass experience of the twentieth century, but architecture in a broader sense, according to Walter Benjamin, is also a mass experience, and a far older one. He argues in the Artwork essay that the cinema was designed to be received in a state of distraction. The same hold true for architecture, including ecclesiastic architecture. In an essay written in 1936, shortly after his visit to the Soviet Union and two years after the construction of the Moscow Cinema, he writes, “Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is consumed by a collectivity in a state of distraction.” Of course, on the one hand a cinema is a mass attention-focusing device – as is a church. But on the other hand, a cinema – particularly an open-air one – like a church – with the comings and goings and estrangement effects of the liturgy – is a haven for mind wandering.

Let us focus on this site of distraction and dissension a moment longer. The current site of the Moscow Theatre is of considerable archaeological significance: Saint Peter’s and Saint Pauls Church was built on the ruins of a 5^th century church, destroyed during the earthquake of 1678; it had apparently been built on the site of a large pagan temple – as was revealed in a slap-dash archaeological dig in the ruins of Saints Peter’s and Paul’s church when it was demolished in 1931… to make way for the Moscow Cinema. Soon after gaining power in 1921, the Soviet authorities – following the urban renewal plan of the renowned urban architect Alexander Tamanian – had taken bold steps to transform the provincial town into the architecturally exemplary Soviet capital. Moscow Cinema itself – a fusion of Bauhaus, Art Deco and Socialist Realism – was built in 1936 on the exact spot of the church.

It was only in 1970, that the outdoor summer cinema was appended to the main structure in what had been its rear parking lot, constructed by high-modernist architects Spartak Knteghtsian and Telman Gevorgian. The all-concrete, archi-minimalist almost brutalist aesthetics of the building make it exemplary of the best of Soviet modernism – and in this respect, no doubt, particularly abhorrent to the specious traditionalism of contemporary ecclesiastic architecture in Armenian, which makes ostentatious use of thin layers of tufa on every built surface. In many ways, it is the very existence of the 1970s which is on trial: did that decade of modernist architecture actually take place in the Soviet Union, or was it merely dead time before history could begin again, all traces of which should be properly erased? And that is, ultimately, the most intriguing feature of the Open-air amphitheatre of the Moscow Theatre: that it is almost entirely invisible – its coefficient of visibility from the street not substantially greater than that of the ghostly presence of the temple and two churches that once occupied the site. Whether the quasi invisibility of this site of contention – paradoxical yet perhaps appropriate for an attention-focusing structure of distraction – turns out to be reminiscent of its modernist heritage or prescient of its fate remains to be seen.

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Folder: MOSCOW CINEMA YEREVAN Of Churches and Cinemas: the case of the open-air hall of Yerevan’s “Moscow Cinema” by Stephen Wright 22/07/2012	Of Churches and Cinemas: the case of the open-air hall of Yerevan’s “Moscow Cinema” The “Moscow Cinema” was a prominent feature of the Soviet cityscape. Most every self-respecting city in the Soviet Union and throughout the East Bloc had one, though many have since fallen prey to the wrecker’s ball. From the 1930s until the end of the century, a Moscow Cinema was in some sense the equivalent of a Saints Peter’s and Paul’s church throughout Christendom. The comparison may seem far fetched but the ideological architecture of churches and cinemas have certain points of resemblance – which is why it is telling to note how the two institutions, sacred and profane, have run up against one another in the ongoing dispute about the fate of the open-air projection hall, sometimes referred to as the “summer cinema,” of the Moscow Cinema in downtown Yerevan, Armenia. On 25 February 2010, Yerevan City Council announced that the Moscow Cinema was to yield, without monetary compensation, the land of its open-air hall to the Holy Seat of Ejmiatsin, which was authorized to tear down the outdoor amphitheatre in order to reconstruct a 17^th century church (Surb Poghos-Petros – Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s) that once stood on the same site, before being demolished to make way for the cinema. The announcement elicited an outpouring of public indignation – within two days, 2000 people had signed a petition on Facebook condemning this further act of “cultural vandalism,” a month later they were 5000. Apparently, the 1970s minimalist structure enjoyed an unexpected degree of popular support – it was Yerevan’s only outdoor cinema, and drew large audiences during warm summer evenings. However, a Church-friendly website, has called the project “an act of historic justice” and the Armenian Church itself has argued that the people of Yerevan “need more places to worship.” Churches are not in short supply – there are four within 300 metres of the site – and Moscow Cinema is one of two remaining, still-functioning movie houses in the city. But such arguments are perhaps beside the point. It seems the issue is more of a litmus test as to the city’s architectural future. The case is particularly interesting because it focuses on and links even as it opposes cinematic and ecclesiastic architectural forms. Cinema was the pre-eminent mass experience of the twentieth century, but architecture in a broader sense, according to Walter Benjamin, is also a mass experience, and a far older one. He argues in the Artwork essay that the cinema was designed to be received in a state of distraction. The same hold true for architecture, including ecclesiastic architecture. In an essay written in 1936, shortly after his visit to the Soviet Union and two years after the construction of the Moscow Cinema, he writes, “Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is consumed by a collectivity in a state of distraction.” Of course, on the one hand a cinema is a mass attention-focusing device – as is a church. But on the other hand, a cinema – particularly an open-air one – like a church – with the comings and goings and estrangement effects of the liturgy – is a haven for mind wandering. Let us focus on this site of distraction and dissension a moment longer. The current site of the Moscow Theatre is of considerable archaeological significance: Saint Peter’s and Saint Pauls Church was built on the ruins of a 5^th century church, destroyed during the earthquake of 1678; it had apparently been built on the site of a large pagan temple – as was revealed in a slap-dash archaeological dig in the ruins of Saints Peter’s and Paul’s church when it was demolished in 1931… to make way for the Moscow Cinema. Soon after gaining power in 1921, the Soviet authorities – following the urban renewal plan of the renowned urban architect Alexander Tamanian – had taken bold steps to transform the provincial town into the architecturally exemplary Soviet capital. Moscow Cinema itself – a fusion of Bauhaus, Art Deco and Socialist Realism – was built in 1936 on the exact spot of the church. It was only in 1970, that the outdoor summer cinema was appended to the main structure in what had been its rear parking lot, constructed by high-modernist architects Spartak Knteghtsian and Telman Gevorgian. The all-concrete, archi-minimalist almost brutalist aesthetics of the building make it exemplary of the best of Soviet modernism – and in this respect, no doubt, particularly abhorrent to the specious traditionalism of contemporary ecclesiastic architecture in Armenian, which makes ostentatious use of thin layers of tufa on every built surface. In many ways, it is the very existence of the 1970s which is on trial: did that decade of modernist architecture actually take place in the Soviet Union, or was it merely dead time before history could begin again, all traces of which should be properly erased? And that is, ultimately, the most intriguing feature of the Open-air amphitheatre of the Moscow Theatre: that it is almost entirely invisible – its coefficient of visibility from the street not substantially greater than that of the ghostly presence of the temple and two churches that once occupied the site. Whether the quasi invisibility of this site of contention – paradoxical yet perhaps appropriate for an attention-focusing structure of distraction – turns out to be reminiscent of its modernist heritage or prescient of its fate remains to be seen.