Léon Gurekian


Léon Gurekian was an Ottoman Armenian architect, writer and political activist. He was active in the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria and Italy.

Biography

Léon Gurekian, the son of Hovhannes Gurekian and Prapion Yeremian, was born in Constantinople on 26 April 1871. His Armenian family originated and resided in Trebizond and worked in business relations between the Middle East and Europe - especially Marseille.
He studied first in Trebizond before and completed studies at the Mechitarist Armenian College of Venice in 1888. He then went to Rome where he graduated in 1895 both from the with the Diploma of Professor of architectural design and from the "Regia Scuola di Applicazione degli Ingegneri" with a .
He married Mariamik Azarian in 1901, in Constantinople. Their only son Ohannés Gurekian was born in 1902 and was also architect.

Career

Bulgaria

Shortly after returning to Constantinople in 1896, he managed to escape the pogroms of the Armenians by the Sultan Abdul Hamid II by taking refuge in Bulgaria. After getting his architecture degree recognized by the Bulgarian Government, he designed various buildings and won the contest to design the Municipal Professional Theatre in Varna which was later built with only slight modifications by Bulgarian architect Nikola Lazarov.

Constantinople

Returning to Constantinople in 1899, Gurekian designed numerous buildings in the town and on the islands of Prinkipo. During his period he had contacts with the architects of the Balyan family, which family archive includes many original drawings and photos.
During this period Gurekian was also intensely politically active, publishing under a pseudonym in Armenian newspapers.

Italy

On 7 September 1907, he moved suddenly and without apparent explanation to Rome.
In 1908 he obtained from the in Rome, the Diploma of Professor of Architectural Design, on the basis of his studies there in architecture in 1895.
In 1911 he designed and built the Ottoman Pavilion to the International Exhibition in Turin. This is one of the only works he designed in Italy, the others being the funeral chapel of a friend of his in Trieste and his home - Villa Ararat - in Asolo, Treviso.
In September 1911 he was appointed representative of the Ottoman Government to the International Congress of architects in Rome, but while there the Italo-Turkish War arose and he participated as a regular member of the Association of Architects which was already part.
Starting in 1911, and increasingly in subsequent years, he spent time in Asolo which is also the summer residence of the Armenian College in Venice. For several years from 1921 onwards he went in vacation in Frassené in the province of Belluno where the environment reminded him of Toz at Trebizond, where his family had a summer residence during his childhood.
In 1912 he began a long project to survey important monuments of Byzantine and Romanesque Architecture in Ravenna, Aquileia, Istria, Dalmatia and especially in Brianza with the aim of studying the influence of Armenian Architecture on Romanesque Architecture. This was basically in opposition to the thesis of G.T. Rivoira.
From 19141918 the First World War forced him to stay in Asolo where he made a living as a photographer.
In 1919 he went to Paris where he published a political analysis of World War I in the form of an animal allegory: "The Responsible". While there he also participated in political efforts towards the constitution of the Independent Republic of Armenia.
In 1922, becoming bitterly aware of the impossibility of returning to what would be the Independent Armenian Republic given the failure of the Treaty of Versailles, he decided to settle in Asolo and designed and built his home there.
From that moment, he totally abandoned architecture. He published a series of political and philological studies, mostly in the Armenian language. In "Kars and Ardahan" he put forward the Armenian claim to those provinces, which were ceded to Turkey in the Treaty of Alexandropol.
At the end of the Second World War a Delegation of the Soviet Armenian Republic went to Asolo to ask Gurekian if he was willing to move to Armenia. Being already sick he refused, but stated in support of that cause that: behind me there was always a photograph of General Antranik.
He died in Asolo on 2 September 1950 and was buried in family grave.

Architectural Contributions

Bulgaria 1896-1898