Iza Cholahyan was born on 20 February 1936 in Yerevan, where she graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Yerevan as an architect in 1959.

Later, while Cholahyan was working as an architect, she designed the dormitory for the students of the Institute of Physical Education (Общежитие Института физкультуры) in Yerevan. She was responsible for the design and construction of several official buildings of the Armenian SSR. These include the building of the Insurance Committee of the Armenian SSR (ВЦ Госснаба Арм.ССР и административное здание Госстраха Арм.ССР), which is also located in Yerevan.

The architect participated in the projects of creative centres and institutes in Spitak. She designed, with others, the Music School (Музыкальная школа), as well as the Centre for Aesthetic Education for Children (Центр детского эстетического воспитания) in Spitak.
One of Cholahyan’s main occupations, apart from architectural design, is designing commemorative plaques or monuments to all the important figures of Armenian modernism. She dedicated architects such as Grigor Agababyan (Григор Агабабян) or the poet Hovhannes Tumanyan (Ованес Туманян), the father of Tamar Tumanyan. Other names of actors, doctors and artists have also been immortalised in the Armenian capital. Outside Armenia, there is another memorial plaque on the wall of the Armenian cemetery in Moscow. It can be assumed that her motivation for this activity is the memorial plaque honouring her father, the Armenian statesman Gurgen Cholakhyan, in Yerevan.

The writing of the memorial plaques usually has a calligraphic style. Cholahyan presented her works at the exhibition “Calligraphy in Architecture” at AOKS in 1993.