The Armenian religious architecture was subject to destruction and transformation during and after the Armenian Genocide of 1915, leading to the current condition of an architecture in ruins. In this context, ruins acquire an important symbolic meaning as they represent currently the only physical trace left of the old Armenian presence in Anatolia and become sites of memory recallinga collective loss.
Francesca Penoni is a PhD candidate in Architectural and Landscape Heritage at the Politecnico di Torino (Italy) with a thesis entitled “The Armenian Religious Architecture in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey: between Memory and new Tendencies”. Before starting her PhD she completed two graduate programs: an MA in History at Sabanci University (2012-2015) and an MA in Foreign Languages and Literatures at Cà Foscari University of Venice (2009-2011), where she also received her BA in 2008. She is currently interested in the history of Armenian architecture and its remains as “site of memory” of a lost homeland that the Ottoman Armenians have been forced to abandon.