Hrazdan Stadium

Location: Yerevan, Armenia

Completed: 1970

Architects: Koryun Hakopyan and Gurgen Musheghyan 

Genre: Brutalist, Soviet architecture, former USSR

Hrazdan Stadium was built as part of a series of projects designed to mark the 50th anniversary of the sovietisation of Armenia. At the project stage, it was criticised by the Soviet leadership in Moscow, who pointed out that a city with a population of 750,000 at the time did not require a stadium that could accommodate 75,000. However, the build went ahead and was constructed in a record time of just 18 months. The stadium’s inauguration, at the end of November 1970, was attended by Leonid Brezhnev, the then General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Hrazdan was the first stadium in the world to be built in mountainous terrain and it was also the first two-storey stadium to be erected in the Soviet Union. More information about Hrazdan Stadium.