ABSTRACT
In Yerevan, capital of an independent Armenia and part of the Soviet Trans-Caucasian Federation the transformation effected at the Cascades trades on culture's supposed claim to universal value, but does so for ideological purposes. Until it became a garrison town in the Russian Empire, Yerevan was a settlement of singlestorey compacted earth buildings. Much of Yerevan dates from the early twentieth century, many of its buildings are in pink and grey tufa, but the buildings of the new centre are constructed in the steel, glass and cladding of globalised redevelopment. Renovating a city's image is less costly than rebuilding an infrastructure, and offers a higher profile than building schools, clinics, community centres and bus shelters; hence the proliferation of culturally led regeneration which has spread now to the ex-East bloc. The attraction of cultural regeneration spread to Eastern Europe after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
