page_title: Anna Ter-Avetikian
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Anna Ter-Avetikian / Career
caption_attribution_description: This is a photo of a monument in Armenia identified by the ID 1.6/130
context_page_description: Anna Ter-Avetikian was the first Armenian woman to become an architect. She designed numerous notable buildings throughout the country and was the recipient of several national prizes for her work.
context_section_description: Together with her husband, Ter-Avetikian designed the fire and police stations in Yerevan and the "Sasuntsi Tavit" cinema, though the cinema was later destroyed. In 1938, one of her designs won recognition at the Parisian international exhibit of "Woman in art and folk art" and that same year, received the designation Laureate of the All-Union Review of the Technical Creativity of Women Architects (Russian: Лауреат Всесоюзных смотров творчества женщин-архитекторов). Between 1941 and 1943, she served as the Chair of the Armenian Union of Architects. Her design for the filmmaker's building won the first prize in the 1948 All-Soviet Female Architects' Competition. The building, often known as Ponchikanots building, because it housed one of Yerevan's first cafés, which served ponchiks, a kind of pastry.
  Throughout her career, Ter-Avetikian, who later went to work with another design firm, built residential and office buildings, as well as schools and hospitals. Among some of her designs are the "Armenfilm" film studio on the corner of Lenin Avenue and Kirov Streets in Yerevan; the Ministry of Trade building; the NKVD building at Abovyan and Kirov Streets in Yerevan; the  R. Acharyan Institute of Language in Yerevan; schools in Echmiadzin, Kirovakan, Leninakan, Stepanavan, and Yerevan; a hospital in Nor Bayazet. Her designs were known for their classic composition and decorative elements, but with the decidedly nationalist features of Armenian architecture. She gained a reputation for corner structures and her ability to design in harmony with the surrounding spaces, utilizing such elements as concave arcades to offset the straight lines of a street.
  In 1945 Ter-Avetikian was recognized by the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and in 1956, she was again designated as a Laureate of the All-Union Review. In 1968, Ter-Avetikian became an architect emeritus and she retired in 1972. After Armenia gained its independence from the Soviet Union, Ter-Avetikian was recognized by the Republic of Armenia, receiving the Alexander Tamanian Gold Medal in 2002.  In 2008, she received the Gold Medal of Yerevan, from the city, on the event of her 100th birthday. She was the subject of a featured article in the magazine Architecture, Construction (Архитектура, строительство) in 2012, in which she and her work were compared to the noted Brazilian centenarian and architect Oscar Niemeyer.
caption: Vladimir Mayakovsky's school No. 7, Yerevan designed by Ter-Avetikian
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