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Traditional Architecture
By Irene Hadjisavva
*
T
he rich history of Cyprus, from the dawn of
human civilisation to the end of the Middle
Ages, is punctuated by significant monuments.
But alongside the island’s ancient ruins and the
Byzantine churches stands its anonymous ver-
nacular architecture, the built environment of our
historic settlements. These traditional buildings,
constructed to shelter the life and aspirations of
ordinary people, encapsulate the material expres-
sion, the living testimony of the culture, the beliefs
and the social, political and economic circum-
stances of our ancestors.
The form and organisation of settlements and their
vernacular buildings depend on the topography
of the land, the climatic conditions, the available
materials and their properties, but also on socio-
economic factors. Villages seem to organically
grow upon the landscape, be it steep mountains,
rounded hills or plains, forming a remarkable uni-
ty between natural and manmade environments.
Settlements were compact, densely built, with
narrow, earthen or stone-paved streets uniting the
individual dwellings and linking the settlement to
the agricultural land at its outskirts. The church
was the historic core of the settlement, a gathering
place for the settlement’s inhabitants and the cen-
tre of its social and economic activity. Other public
spaces were rare, usually developed alongside the
main road leading to the settlement.
The Rural House
The rural house was built without following a set
plan, but according to the needs of the family. The
organisation of the house reflected the introverted
nature of the community. The closed inner courtyard
was the heart of the house, a main living and work-
ing space for both people and animals. Surrounded
by highwalls, it was an inherent and necessary com-
ponent of the dwelling space and provided access to
the different parts of the house, usually two or three
makrinaria
(narrow long rooms), cellars and/or
di-
chora
(double space rooms) which were always po-
sitioned against the edges of the plot, either in a lin-
ear or an L-shape formation.Access to the courtyard
from the house was via a courtyard door that led
straight to it, or through a semi-open arched portico.
The rooms were rarely linked to each other; their
doors usually opened only onto the courtyard. The
dichoro
was themost important internal space of the
house and had multiple functions: it served as a liv-
ing and sleeping room and as a reception space, but
it could also house animals. The
dichoro
was formed
by doubling the width of a
makrinari
by replacing
the dividing wall with a wooden beam spanning the
length of the room, or by inserting a stone arch in
place of thewall.When the archwas used, this room
was called
palati
(palace).
The
iliakos
(sun-room) was another important fea-
ture of the traditional house. It was a semi-covered
Courtyard of a traditional house. Photo: Irene Hadjisavva
* Planning Officer, Department of Town Planning