The Matenadaran in Yerevan was designed by Mark Grigorian, commissioned in October 1939 by Soviet Armenian authorities, and built from 1945 to 1957 or 1958, with a pause from 1947 to 1953. The infobox also lists Arthur Meschian, who designed a separate new building in 2011. The article describes the original style as medieval Armenian architecture.
The facade is local gray basalt, with a copper main door and brown marble in the lobby. The original building is 73 feet (22.4 m) tall and rises 59 feet (18 m) above street level. The new building has five stories and 130,000 square feet (12,000 m²).
The collection was nationalized on December 17, 1920, and the institution was established on March 3, 1959. It took Mesrop Mashtots's name in 1962, and UNESCO's Memory of the World register added it in 1997. It holds about 23,000 manuscripts. The article gives no hours.
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