Rafael Israelyan

Rafael Israelyan (Armenian: Ռաֆայել Իսրայելյան; September 17, 1908 – September 8, 1973) was an Armenian architect and designer. He is the author of an architectural heritage of civil buildings, monuments and design works.

Background and Education

Rafael Israelyan was born in 1908 in Tiflis. Between 1926-1928 he studied at the architectural faculty of the Academy of Arts in Tiflis, and then at the architectural faculty of the Institute of Communal Construction of Leningrad named after Ilya Repin. He graduated in 1934 with the title of artist-architect. In 1936 he successfully completed his courses for the Masters degree at the same institute. In the same year he moved to Yerevan and started working in Yerevan city's architectural design institutions.

Israelyan had a long teaching career in Yerevan Polytechnic Institute between 1941 and 1963. He was a member of the Architectural Commission of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin between 1956 and 1970.

After the death of Rafayel Israelyan, his son Areg, also an architect, took the responsibility to complete his father's unfinished projects.