Armenian Genocide Memorial And Museum

[TJ]

i was just bored and going back to one of the earliest posts and i found a thread that was named just like this one. and i was curious because i had heard of the memorial and museum 2 or 3 years ago and then talk had subsided last i heard was they were looking for an architect. does anyone have any info on what stage the project is at right now? or when it will be completed

for anyone that is not familiar with this: they bought a very large site in washington dc about 2 blocks from the white house where there used to stand a very influential bank i think and now they are going to build a museum and memorial for the Armenian genocide.

[xBaron Dants]

Tigran jan, I didn't know what to answer to this post then, but I just read an article which provides an answer. Relevant parts are in bold, but the whole article is quite interesting.

I love the whole idea of transforming the Cascades into a beautiful touristic spot.

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Diaspora to the rescue
An Armenian publisher living in the US has pledged $100 million to establish a contemporary art museum in Yerevan.

New York, Art Newspaper:. Ten years ago, the newly established Armenian Republic was a nation at war with its neighbours, recovering from an earthquake and slowly building an economy. As that economy gains momentum, Armenian cultural institutions can expect significant support from a wealthy diaspora in the US.

According to American census figures, Armenian-Americans achieve the highest levels of education and highest per capita wealth of any ethnic minority in the US.

Prominent Armenian-Americans involved in the art world include the art dealer Larry Gagosian, the collector and benefactor Richard Manoogian, manufacturer of Delta Faucets, who is credited with saving the Detroit Institute of Arts (once city-owned) from collapse, and Kirk Kerkorian, the billionaire investor, entrepreneur, owner of theme parks, movie studios (United Artists) and casinos (Bellagio) under the MGM-Grand umbrella. Mr Kerkorian has been a major donor to Armenian projects for the past decade.

But the largest pledge of support to date comes from Gerard L. Cafesjian, an Armenian-American publisher living in Naples, Florida, who has promised to give $100 million through his foundation to help build a new contemporary art museum in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. The museum will probably house Mr Cafesjian’s own collection.

Mr Cafesjian has also committed a large chunk of the $100 million construction cost of the planned Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial in Washington, DC.

Born Jirair Cafesjian in Brooklyn in 1925, Gerard Cafesjian studied sculpture at the Art Students League, but trained in law and joined the staff of West Publishing, a legal publisher based in Minneapolis. “I had just average talent and wasn’t able to develop a distinctive style,” he later recalled.

As Minneapolis began to develop a reputation for corporate philanthropy, Mr Cafesjian started to support local museums, especially the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Weisman Museum of the University of Minnesota.
His most popular act of local philanthropy was his restoration of a 1914 carousel in Como Park, now called the Cafesjian Carousel. The benefactor also hired the architect Will Bruder to convert an old cinema into the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona.

When that institution opened in 1999, its galleries exhibited Mr Cafesjian’s collection of studio glass works, sculptural jewellery and other contemporary art.

Mr Cafesjian has long been a collector of works by Dale Chihuly and the glass constructions of the Czech artists Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova. He also owns sculptures by Fernando Botero; one Botero bronze of a Roman gladiator guards the entrance of the Weisman Museum. Mr Cafesjian has also been an eager buyer of works by the Armenian émigré Arshile Gorky; his latest purchase were two drawings acquired last November at a Sotheby’s sale.

Interest from buyers like Mr Cafesjian and greater exposure for Gorky (a show devoted to the artist is currently on view at the Whitney until 15 February) are driving prices upwards; a New York gallery recently offered Mr Cafesjian a Gorky painting for $12.1 million, more than twice the auction record price.

Published reports estimate the value of Mr Cafesjian’s art collection at $110 million, although its curator, Otto Theuer, would not comment on that figure.
American museums have besieged Mr Cafesjian, but the donor’s strongest philanthropic commitment is now to Armenia. His planned museum in Yerevan is to be situated in the Cascade, a steep axial walkway climbing some 30 storeys up a hill, that began to be built in the 1980s as a monument to 50 years of Soviet Armenia.

The museum, now budgeted at $25 million for construction, is expected to occupy a 35-acre “monumental terrace” at the Cascade’s summit, which has a view of the entire city.

Although his collection is likely to end up there, Mr Cafesjian says he will wait for a yet unappointed director to decide whether the museum wants it. Mr Cafesjian’s foundation has solicited museum designs from Bernard Tschumi in New York, Coop Himmelblau in Vienna and MVDRV in Rotterdam.

Meanwhile, the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial that Mr Cafesjian and other Armenian donors plan for Washington, DC, two blocks from the White House, is to be housed in a former National Bank of Washington building acquired for $7.2 million. The museum will receive no government funding despite the fact that the American Holocaust Museum gets more than $30 million a year in federal money.

[TJ]

thanks baron, that was a pretty interesting article, i was reading a while back about how they had this big argument in Armenia whether or not they should use this "wave" design on top of the cascade musuem because some people were saying its too modern and might take away from the character of the city but i think its great and its probably going to be the first musuem of such a calibre in the area.

About the museu, that just goes to show you how prejudiced and xxxxed up this government really is. At least the project is going strong though, i cant wait to see all these crazy turks writing articles from ankara deploring how its all lies, remember the backlash after ararat. the funny thing is noone takes these people seriously and they just keep making it worse and worse.