The Traditional Urban House in Cyprus as Material Expression of Cultural Transformation
In this study, the city of Nicosia and its houses are identified as material artefacts that insistently reveal private and public identities, aesthetic and constructional purposes, routine and spiritual aspirations of people from different cultural backgrounds. The study brings together the main findings on the early traditional urban house of Cyprus to establish the origin of local concepts and forms. It then examines the record of changing thoughts and actions concretely expressed by architectural transformations in the walled city from the last quarter of the sixteenth century. It concludes that the traditional urban house is the key creation in the material milieu of the city. Reflecting social and physical transformations from Latin (Frankish and Venetians) occidental into the Ottoman Turkish oriental intrusions, it is both a product of and design for the collective.
Key Words: architecture • built environment • Cyprus • urban houses • vernacular