Documents of Armenian Architecture 7
Goshavank

During the first decades of the XXth century, Armenian architecture was the centre of a lively discussion between the "Orientalist" theories of Strzygowski and the "western-Roman" theories of Rivoira regarding the origins of medieval architecture. Once the dilemma between Rome and the East had been overcome, the position of Armenia as a link between the two worlds-because of its geographical position and historical events-becomes undeniable. Armenian architecture, which is sometimes superficially considered as a peripheral area of the Byzantine world (also because it has normally been studied without direct, "in situ" documentation) is now the subject of research conducted by the Department of Architecture of Milan University, in close cooperation with the Institute of Architecture «f the Academy of Science of Armenia SSR. The aim of this collection of "Documents" is to present for the first time a series of examples of Armenian architecture, supplying for each monument, an exhaustive, mostly unpublished collection of photographic illustrations as well as a complete series of plans accompanied by one or more short introductory historical, critical and illustrative essays. The texts were prepared by members of the Armenian Academy of Sciences by Italian researchers and by scholars of other countries and are thus a further proof of cultural cooperation between the scholars of different nationalities.