Mihran Mesrobian (Armenian: Միհրան Մեսրոպեան; 10 May 1889 – 21 September 1975) was an Armenian-American architect whose career spanned over fifty years and in several countries.

Mihran Mesrobian was born 10 May 1889 in Afyonkarahisar, Ottoman Empire to Gaspar and Miriam (née Palanjian), an Armenian family of merchants.

[1] Mihran Mesrobian attended the local Sahakian Armenian school which provided education aligned with European standards.

Sahakian also taught various languages including French, Ottoman Turkish, Armenian, and English, all of which helped Mesrobian in his education and future career.

[1] At the age of fifteen, Mihran Mesrobian's talent in drawing and sketching was noticed by his father who then sent him to Constantinople to take entrance exams at the Academy of Fine Arts.

[1] However, it is believed that many of the buildings designed by Mesrobian were destroyed due to the Great Fire of Smyrna of 1922, with the exception of the hotel built in 1912.

[2] Mesrobian was then transferred to a British encampment in Zagazig, Egypt and was held there as a prisoner of war (POW) from late fall 1918 until his release in May 1919.

The genocide carried out during and after World War I was implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian Desert.

Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre.

[15] Mihran Mesrobian returned to Constantinople after the war and discovered that fifteen members of his family and relatives in Afyonkasarhisar were deported.

[1][3] Due to growing maltreatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Mesrobian decided to move to the United States in the early 1920s.

[6][7][16] With the allowance of Armenians immigrants into the United States reaching its limit, Mesrobian was given special permission to enter the country by the Secretary of Labor due to his expertise in architecture.

In 1929, Mesrobian received an award for excellence in his design for his work with the Carlton Hotel by the Greater Washington Board of Trade.

[21] The building was done in an Italian Renaissance style and it featured Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns of the classical Greek era.

[2] A few years later, after Wardman declared bankruptcy in 1930, Mesrobian established his own practice which produced a variety of residential and commercial work over the ensuing quarter century.

The building is located on the south end of Dupont Circle in Washington DC and its entrance is on 1350 Connecticut Avenue NW.

The architectural style incorporated into the work is largely art-deco infused with a mix of Byzantine, Moorish, and medieval influences.

[20] The interiors of Sedgwick Gardens include solid mahogany doors, brass hardware, and limestone-marble in the octagonal lobby.

In 1931, while working on the Dupont Circle Building, Mesrobian was commissioned by an Armenian friend, Nejib Hekimian, to design his oriental carpet store.

The store, located on 1214 18th Street, NW, was given a Middle-Eastern influence that incorporated arabesque and geometric motifs and polychrome tiles.

[6] With the end of World War II, Mesrobian designed numerous apartments in Northern Virginia to accommodate the population boom.

It is a one-story, L-shaped cinder-block building with a flat parapet roof and clad in a six-course, American-bond brick veneer with cast-stone decorative accents.

It features large store-front windows, Art Deco decorative elements, and a central square tower surmounted by a glass-block clerestory capped by a pyramidal-shaped metal roof.

It was built to serve the residents of the Buckingham apartment complex and Ashton Heights, as well as the many motorists traveling along Arlington Boulevard and North Glebe Road.

[26] In 1943, Mesrobian designed the Wakefield Manor, a garden apartment complex located at 1215 N. Courthouse Road in Arlington.

[27][28] The design of the building incorporates an art-deco and moderne style and was built under standards promoted by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

[24] Just prior to his retirement, Mesrobian designed the Lee Gardens North Historic District, also known as Woodbury Park Apartments, in Arlington County, Virginia.

[26] Mihran Mesrobian retired in the early 1950s and lived in 7410 Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase, Maryland in a house he designed himself in 1941.