Architecture as Active Remembrance: The Armenian Genocide and the Legacy of Sacred Space

How do we remember something that others did not want us to remember? That is a loaded question, and one that carries significant importance as we reach the 110th anniversary of the Armenian genocide this week. April 24th, 1915 marks a day of incomprehensible tragedy. The Ottoman Empire launched a systematic campaign to annihilate the Armenian people. In addition to the tragic loss of over a million lives, the genocide led to the destruction of sacred spaces, churches, schools, cemeteries, and homes. All of these structures once formed the physical and spiritual fabric of Armenian life. The deliberate erasure of architecture was not incidental; it was instrumental. The dismantling of built heritage was a targeted effort to obliterate the collective memory and cultural identity associated with the Armenian people. 

In the field of architecture, we are taught that space is never neutral. Architecture encodes meaning, memory, and identity. When sacred spaces are demolished, the rupture extends far beyond the physical, it fractures historical continuity and intergenerational memory. Yet architecture can also serve as a tool of resistance. Through preservation, adaptive reuse, digital reconstruction, and symbolic design, we can honor what was lost and create new spaces of remembrance. In this way, architecture becomes a counterforce to historical erasure. The built environment possesses the capacity to serve as a vessel through which memory can persist.

One of the most profound examples of this resistance is seen in diaspora architecture. Following the genocide, Armenians were dispersed across the globe from Beirut and Paris to Buenos Aires and Los Angeles. In exile, architecture became not only a practical necessity but a means of cultural reclamation. Armenian churches and community centers began to emerge in these new landscapes, integrating traditional design elements such as pointed stone arches, khachkars (cross-stones), and symbolic ornamentation. These structures are not mere replications of lost buildings; they are reinterpretations rooted in memory yet adapted to new environments. They offer continuity without replication, functioning as both sacred spaces and cultural anchors for displaced communities.

In Beirut, the St. Nishan Armenian Apostolic Church established in 1940 stands as a spiritual and cultural nucleus for Lebanon’s large Armenian population, embodying traditional stone craftsmanship reminiscent of medieval Armenian monasteries. In Paris, the Armenian Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, consecrated in 1904, became a refuge and cultural beacon for Armenians arriving in France before and after the genocide. In Los Angeles, which is now home to the largest Armenian diaspora outside Armenia, the St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in Burbank was completed in 2010. The church was deeply inspired by 4th-century Armenian ecclesiastical architecture and serves as both a sacred space and a symbolic culmination of diasporic perseverance.

Diaspora architecture thus exemplifies how memory can be spatially reconstituted. It illustrates the power of the built environment to maintain identity, facilitate community, and quietly but defiantly reject cultural erasure. As an architecture student, this legacy compels me to consider how design decisions can carry historical weight. It challenges me to think of buildings not only as forms and functions, but as expressions of survival and resilience.

I believe that the most crucial starting point in preserving these narratives is education, particularly within my generation. We cannot undo the past, but we can choose how we engage with it and how we carry its lessons forward. To study the Armenian Genocide through the lens of architecture is to understand that space can be both a target and a testimony. It is to recognize that the denial of atrocity often begins with the destruction of evidence, places, stories, and symbols. Therefore, the act of educating becomes a way to resist forgetting. 

In an era marked by renewed geopolitical violence and cultural erasure, this conversation is crucial to ruminate. From the shelling of religious sites in Ukraine to the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, the stakes of architectural memory feel especially high. These are not just news headlines, they are modern extensions of the same patterns of erasure that began in 1915.

To remember, then, is not a passive act. It is active, intentional, and architectural. We remember through physical preservation, symbolic spatial interventions, diaspora reconstructions, and educational engagement. When the material cannot be recovered, we honor it through the values we embed in the new design, through form, ritual, and reflection.

In remembering the Armenian Genocide and the sacred spaces lost, we are not only commemorating a history of pain. Rather we are asserting a future shaped by awareness, dignity, and design that refuses to forget.