National Library of Armenia, National library in Kentron District, Yerevan, Armenia
The National Library of Armenia is the main repository for Armenian literature, manuscripts, and historical documents, located in the Kentron District of Yerevan. It contains several reading rooms and study areas, as well as a digital collection of millions of pages of Armenian texts.
The institution was founded in 1832 as part of a school in Yerevan and became an official national library in 1919. That change came with Armenia's desire to have a dedicated place for gathering and keeping its written heritage.
The library holds the personal book collections of notable Armenian intellectuals, which visitors can consult in dedicated reading rooms. Walking through the building, one gets a sense of how central the written word has been to Armenian life for centuries.
It is worth checking opening hours in advance and finding out what is needed to use the reading rooms before your visit. The building sits in central Yerevan and is easy to reach by public transport.
The building was designed in 1939 by Alexander Tamanyan, the architect who shaped much of central Yerevan's look. From the start, it was planned to store very large numbers of books, and the structure still reflects the practical thinking of the mass printing era.
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