2800th Anniversary Park and Hegemonic Iconography of the Nation
The socio-material reconfigurations of our urban existence have a crucial placement within larger anthropological debates. One could argue that ideological practices, economic conditions and political frictions are materialised and reiterated through the production of space, shaping a particular ‘socio-spatial dialectic’ (Soja, 1989) reflected in the everyday material assemblages of our built environment. Equally, such interventions in urban planning and space-making become larger extensions of state-building frameworks, further reinforcing ontological links between urbanisation, accumulation and extraction of resources, modernisation, and other forms of contemporary governance (Taylor, 1994). Consequently, the reimagination of public spaces and everyday material cultures emerge as physical manifestations of state’s power reproduction, inevitably carrying particular political sensibilities and manufacturing hegemonic collective identities and cultural imaginaries (Yiftachel, 1998).
With the rise of modern capitalist urbanisation, the emergence of public parks in the 18th and 19th centuries coincided with bourgeois sensibilities surrounding conceptualising naturalism as a vital urban ideology (Smith, 1984), simultaneously sublimating the nature-culture dichotomy. The park, according to Manfredo Tafuri, was not only instrumental in disguising the omnipresence of private landownership and its consequent social tensions but further positioned nature as an ideological and political horizon of the modern Western city (Tafuri, 1976), encoding particular sets of behaviours, cultural mediations, values and idealised users into its design.
The intention behind this essay, therefore, is to position public parks as mediums to interrogate the relationship between politics, urbanity and historical production of nature. In order to contextualise these debates, I will frame my observations around the 2800th Anniversary Park in Yerevan, Armenia, simultaneously drawing parallels from different historic and geographic frameworks. Initially being a smaller fragment of the English Park in the centre of the city, the 5 million US dollars investment initiated by Armenian millionaire Hrant Vardanyan elevated the memorial public park as a symbolic landscape collateral to the state’s newly-defined cultural metaphors and imaginations of post-Soviet modernity and prosperity (Mkrtchyan, 2017).
Deriving from the West Germanic word ‘parruk’ which translates into “enclosed track of land” (Dogma, 2018), parks in many ways represented not only enclosure but ‘domestication’ of nature (Ritvo, 2013) within the regulated and disciplined perimeters of dense urban metropolises. Owned by the state and the rising bourgeoisie, the ‘naturalness’ of such urban commons in the 19th century Paris was defined through imaginative and conceptual alignments of ‘culture’ and ‘nature’, as well as potent refinement of asymmetrical power dynamics into a rationalised and objectified perception of nature (Mitchell, 1994, pp.5–24), accommodating the ceaseless flow of capital and redefining the French city based on newly emerging aristocratic values (Harvey, 2003). Such green spaces could also be read as spatial performances of citizenship and state-driven formulations of the ‘public’ as the methodically arranged hedges and idyllic pathways functioned as tools to civilise and develop ideal urban citizens (Park, 2018). As a consequence, public gardens and parks became not only a display of power and state coercion but further “naturalised a regime of seeing, watching and knowing” (Newman, 2020, p.64).
Crucially, such constellations of power, knowledge and geographical imaginary woven into the production of culture-nature synthesis (Descola, 2003) are inherently operating within the distinct framework of colonial modernity, assembling what Edward Said referred to as ‘imaginative geographies’ (Said, 1993). By framing the natural world as series of elaborate representations and socio-material practices that normalise and consequently dominate the nature, the colonized landscape became a systemic totality that “naturalised particular ways of being in and acting in the world” (Gregory, 2001, p.86), shaping a rather ‘compartmentalised’ constitution of the world (Fanon, 1967). What emerged out of these colonial subjectivities was a strategic implementation of universal structural templates and rational geometric projections instilled into the African landscape, further ensuing compartmentalised cultural hegemony conceptualised and shaped around specific bodies and Western notions of progress and value. Whether its British authorities recreating an English landscape and spatial patterns of communal living to ‘rehabilitate’ and police Mau Mau rebels in Kenya (Crinson, 2020), or implementing Ebenezer Howard’s ‘Garden City’ geometries to facilitate racial and socio-spatial segregation policies in the pre-apartheid Cape Town (Coetzer, 2013) — the outcome was quantified and highly racialised architectures of difference within the colonial objectification of nature.
It can be argued that similar intricate interplays between nature, urban planning and state-led interventions are prevalent within the contested socio-spatial relations in US, intrinsically rooted in Transatlantic slavery and colonial negotiations of power. Considering that space is an active producer and synchronously a container for fundamental social formations and hierarchies (Bhandar, 2018), racial and economic distinctions, accordingly, have a spatial dimension (McKittrick, 2011) and are encoded through urban commons and other public spaces. At the core of these methods of space-making is the relational prominence of space and ‘whiteness’ as a form of property (Harris, 1993) that projects the redistribution of social security and public and private ownership based on racial and gendered differences. The symbolic and explicit ownership of the built environment that ‘whiteness’ is constitutionally empowered to maintain prescribes marginalisation and dispossession of the ‘other’ and can be seen in the unequal proximity to public parks and development of racially restrictive deeds (Finney, 2014). In Minneapolis, for instance, the desirable national parks were surrounded by residential districts that excluded racial minorities from acquiring properties in such neighbourhoods (Delegard & Ehrman-Solberg, 2017), further highlighting the role of race in shaping American natural landscape and civic life.
On the opposite spectrum, and linked closer to the outlined case study, the architectural form and more specifically urban parks in Soviet Russia emerged as key elements of the larger Soviet ‘acculturation’ project (Hoffmann, 2003), transforming and reassembling the social and material fabric of the new symbolic socialist society. Reflective of such expansive visions was ‘The Park of Culture and Leisure’ (Gorky Park) in Moscow which was opened to the Russian public in 1928. By placing emphasis on physical well-being and Marxist concepts of leisure (Vronskaya, 2013) in attempt to accommodate the proletariat with institutions and public spaces adapted to its needs, the park operated as “an all-encompassing interaction of physical spaces with the abstract consciousness” (Shaw, 2011, p.327), existing alongside ideological overtones and particular Soviet state-driven moral values articulated in a public sphere. Moreover, beyond functioning as a cognitive and cultural intermediary, the leisure spaces, expansive alleyways and historical monuments positioned Gorky Park as a triumphant physical and aesthetic manifestation of Soviet ideological values.
The representational aptness of material cultures within Soviet urban interventions have a crucial impact on Yerevan’s contemporary urban morphology, constituted through infused archaeological repertories and underlying social conditions of its public sphere (Stepanyan, 2012). During its Soviet period, Yerevan as a city played a fundamental part in Soviet modernisation and ‘nativization’ policies (Suny,1992) aimed to elevate Armenian cultural heritage and national identity through rearranging its symbolic and material landscapes (Suny,1993). In his archaeological research on Yerevan’s formation of ‘public assemblages’, Adam Smith focused specifically on the Soviet architects’ reappropriation of Armenian iconography and medieval repertories to fabricate new cultural meanings and “sacralise” the city’s Soviet presence (Smith, 2012). What emerged out of these decorative palettes, propelled by industrialization and modernization policies, was syncretism of Soviet orientalist imaginations and neoclassic motifs as indistinct Islamic textures on the facades of public monuments (Pfeifer, 2015) and extensive brutalist archways moulded a rather fortified “iconography of the nation” (Panossian, 2006)
In the contemporary context, engrossed in turbulent geopolitical tensions and economic austerity, Yerevan’s socio-spatial relations are defined through corporate urban development initiatives and state-driven reappropriations of entire residential districts and focal heritage sites. As the country is transitioning from its socialist economy, the efficacious Soviet landmarks and their inherent ideological undertones are being converted to accommodate the progressive vision of the city as a contemporary post-Soviet cultural and financial capital (Ter-Ghazaryan, 2010). While the foreign and state-led investments have increasingly amplified Yerevan’s technological and cultural sectors, facilitating viable transcontinental relationships (Azadian, 2020), the outcome of such expansive schemes is largely contentious as newly assembled avenues filled with commercial offices and luxury department stores replaced economically-deprived and neglected neighbourhoods and its derelict Soviet houses.
By its very nature, the Yerevan’s 2800th Anniversary Park becomes an amalgamation of such intricate ideological and socio-spatial assemblages, overladen with symbolical cultural connotations and ideas of progress initiated by private capital. Commissioned to reimagine the unused green space of the English Park sprinkled with statues of contested communist leaders and other material representations of the old regime, the proposed vision for the park aspires to provide an alternative depiction of Yerevan’s layered history, reintegrating the traditional elements of Armenian folklore into a contemporary manifestation of Yerevan’s present values. From mosaic pavements referencing traditional Armenian ‘Chartar’ carpets to bronze statues symbolising the frescoes of ancient Erebuni fortress- the socio-material landscape of the park becomes a captivating celebration of nation’s spirit and collective beliefs.
With that being said, the intent to implant Armenian medieval iconography and archaeological repertoires into the material fabric of the park has an epistemological resemblance to the previously mentioned Soviet modernization missions, developing a reinvigorated reordering of Yerevan’s urban landscape. In fact, this valorisation of Armenian heritage can be seen as “the co-option of cultural capital and historical narratives for the validation of corporate venture” (Galstyan, 2019) as the regulatory techniques of the ruling Republic party and the philanthropic endeavours of the Vardanyan Family Foundation utilise the park as a medium to produce a new genealogy of Yerevan’s urban present.
To expand further on these issues of representation and enhancement of cultural repertoires, the notions of ‘enframing’ space and nature into a performative visibility (Gregory, 2001) are equally relevant to this case study. At large, the process of organising the world into an objective and structured depiction inevitably amplifies contentious relations between space, aesthetics and power, translating the fixities and arranged particularities of one’s geology into commodified visual signifiers (Braun, 1997). An appropriate example of these frameworks in the 2800th Anniversary Park could be the previously mentioned mosaic carpets. In his assessment of the park’s structural properties and the overall impact of the initiative, Armenian historian Vardan Azatyan placed emphasis on the role of ornamentation in magnifying the performative nature of Armenian folklore motifs in state-led ‘acculturation’ projects (Azatyan, 2018). Moreover, these invoked decorations, according to Azatyan, highlight the relationship between public gardens and carpets in the domestic environment, visually and on the sensorial level “recreating the experience of nature within the home” (Galstyan, 2019) and vice-versa. The immersed carpet-mosaic, therefore, offers an artificial imaginary on one’s lived environment on a larger scale, playing with the ideas of belonging, citizenship and symbolic ownership of public spaces.
Having said that, we could make an argument that such frameworks convert cultural sentiments and focal heritage sites into spaces of capital accumulation, regulated by extractive policies imperative to privatization and commercialization of public spaces (Hirt, 2012). In fact, a further parallel can be drawn between the 2800th Anniversary Park and the previously mentioned Gorky Park in Moscow. The proposed restoration programme in 2011 that aimed to elevate the park’s cultural significance and create a more potent public engagement with its historic landmarks (Vronskaya, 2013) has also coincided with the state’s larger strategies to privatise and commercialise public spaces, consequently boosting property prices in the close proximity to the park (Kalyukin, Boren & Byerley, 2015).
In the case of 2800th Anniversary Park, beyond improving park’s recreational facilities, the project is also tightly connected to regeneration processes in the surrounding residential districts. It is important to note that Vardanyan Family Foundation has also been involved in the construction of the Northern Avenue in the immediate neighbourhood (Ter-Ghazaryan, 2013) and despite facilitating lucrative retail spaces and a stable flux of foreign investment, the initiative also led to the disenfranchisement and large-scale eviction of the previously residing communities. All of the above, naturally, raises important questions surrounding the sociological implications of such urban modifications as it is imperative to consider the wider repercussions behind the subjugation and reshaping of Yerevan’s public realm.
The implementation of various policing and surveillance techniques within the premises of the park (Galstyan, 2019) also contributes to the ontological tensions between the assumed freedom and governance that define the rhetoric of public spaces. More so, the privatized urban commons foster what Don Mitchell refers to as the “illusion of a homogenized public” (Mitchell, 1995, p.114), projecting contested distinctions of what publics and social behaviours are appropriate and commended. On a different scale, the morphology of the Central Park in New York City in the 19th century was articulated through a myriad of regulatory and zoning techniques, “translating these assemblages of place and ideology to elaborated codes of use and ordinances that regulated spatial practices in the park” (Sevilla-Buitrago, 2014). Although further research would be imperative to determine the social implications of the prevalent disciplinary regulations in the 2800th Anniversary Park, it could be argued that the extensive presence of guards and surveillance cameras inevitably alter movement patterns and ways citizens experience the space.
Despite the highlighted contentions and concerns, the greater impact of the 2800th Anniversary Park in Yerevan remains to be seen. What is also crucial to note is the absence of residents’ perspective and engagement with the park in this particular essay as the extensive ethnographic research would offer a more comprehensive perspective on how communities perceive these changes given the highly contested nature of such socio-material reimaginations of the urban environment. What became evidently clear through this analysis, however, is the capacity to use the park and its material fabric to explore Yerevan’s socio-political transformations, defined and assembled by various agencies and frameworks of power reproduction.
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List of Illustrations:
Fig.1 2800th Anniversary Park in Yerevan. Source: Wikipedia. < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerevan_2800th_Anniversary_Park#/media/File:GCD_1.jpg> (Accessed: 15 May 2021).
Fig.2 British colonial experiments in urban planning in Nijku village, Kenya. Source: Huxley, E. A New Earth: An Experiment in Colonialism, Chatto & Windus, 1960.
Fig.3 Aerial view of Ndabeni suburb in Cape Town, 1926. Source: Coetzer, N. Building Apartheid: On Architecture and Order in Imperial Cape Town. London: Routledge, 2013.
Fig.4 Mapping of racial covenants in relation to Minnesota’s public parks and green spaces. Source: Open Rivers Journal. < https://editions.lib.umn.edu/openrivers/article/mapping-racial-covenants-in-twentieth-century-minneapolis/> (Accessed: 15 May 2021) Fig. 5 Grand Alley in Gorky Park, Moscow, 1939. Source: Shaw, C. A fairground for “building the new man”: Gorky Park as a site of Soviet acculturation. Urban History, 2011.
Fig.6 Pomegranate and other folklore motifs on the Republic House in Yerevan. Source: EEFB. https://eefb.org/retrospectives/symbol-and-tradition-in-parajanovs-caucasian-trilogy/> (Accessed: 15 May 2021)
Fig.7 Armenian traditional carpet motifs in park’s mosaic floors. Source: Wikipedia. < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerevan_2800th_Anniversary_Park#/media/File:VFF123456789.jpg> (Accessed: 15 May 2021)
Fig. 8 Presence of police surveillance in the park. Source: EVN Report. < https://www.evnreport.com/arts-and-culture/zones-of-entrapment-yerevan-s-2800th-anniversary-park-and-the-tyranny-of-taste-fullness> (Accessed: 10 May 2021)