JOURNAL "SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, CULTURE, TRADITIONS".................Volume 1a/2019 THE ‘KASTROPLIKTON’ RESIDENCES IN ANO POLI (UPPER TOWN) OF THESSALONIKI, GREECE. STATUS AND PROSPECTS OF PRESERVATION DOI: 10.26341/issn.2241-4002-2019-1a-3 Christina – Zoi Kefala Civil Engineer TE MSc in Historic Conservation, Oxford Brookes University Nikolaos Samaras University of Thessaly, Greece [email protected] Abstract The refugees, who came to Thessaloniki after the Minor Asia Catastrophe in 1922, according to the Treaty of Lausanne, were settled either in the abandoned Muslim residences or in new ones built in any free plot in Ano Poli of Thessaloniki. Due to the lack of space, some residences were developed along the Byzantine Wall of the City even in contact with it, using the Wall as part of the residence, making it impossible for the visitor to gain access to it, or even to see it. Since 1931, the project of the designation of the City Wall began and a Presidential Decree (Gov. Gazette 406Α΄ / 04.12.1931) was published and it was suggested the creation of a green belt alongside of the Wall. With the implementation of the Presidential Decree, about 900 houses are partially or fully demolished for the construction of the green belt. After that, the buildings of this zone are characterized as demolished and called "kastroplikton" and nowadays are divided in three categories, those that are still inhabited, those that have been abandoned and those that have already been collapsed due to lack of maintenance. Because of the designation of the City Wall, which had already been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, new presidential decrees and a lot of studies of the local authorities were published. Nowadays, according to the new general urban plan of the City which is about to be approved, a lot of expropriations will be implemented. This paper deals with the proposal for preservation and reuse of a larger number of “kastroplikton” building and not to be demolished according to the current legal status. The thought of this proposal is that a larger number of buildings should be preserved so as to constitute an ‘ensemble’ and a testimony of a historical residential complex, lived in the collective memory of the city, while the proposed use is the one that has been over the years: the residence, so that the area keeps the characteristics of a neighborhood, with life and movement 24 hours per day. Keywords: preservation; restoration; re-use; ‘Kastroplikton’; Ano Poli Thessaloniki; refugee residences; - 35 - JOURNAL "SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, CULTURE, TRADITIONS".................Volume 1a/2019 Chapter 1 - Historical, geographical information and legal framework 1.1. Historical and Geographical Information of the Area Thessaloniki Thessaloniki is an ancient city as was founded in 315 BC. by King Cassander and is one of the few cities in Europe that has been operating as an urban center for more than two thousand years. It retained its importance both during the Roman Empire and Byzantium, when it was also a Contracting State, and during the Ottoman Empire as a major trading port. Its geographical position had an important role in the economic development of the entire southern Balkan Peninsula. However, the richness and prosperity that its position ensured enticed the conquerors who tried to and conquer it occasionally. FORTIFICATIONS Thessaloniki always was surrounded by fortifications and the first of them were constructed after its foundation. The Walls that still exist were built in 390 AD, in the reign of Emperor Theodosius. Over the centuries, additions and improvements have taken place, resulting nowadays its impressive features such as its 7 kilometers length, 5 meters width and 10 meters height. Figure 1: The fortification of Thessaloniki (source: www.wikipedia.com, 10.10.2018) Residents After the invasion of the Turks in Thessaloniki in 1430, those who escaped from the massacres left the city. Only 7.000 people stayed. Mourad II, in order to give life to the city again, brought Turkish families from Giannitsa and settled them in the houses of the fugitives. The young Turkish inhabitants, along with the remaining Greeks, the Jewish refugees from Central Europe, the Slavs and the Armenians, lived harmoniously in the first years of the Turkish conquest without discrimination in terms of their profession and religion. But when the city's population grew, with the arrival of the Jews Sephardim, the separation of ethnicities began. The Jews settled near the seaside wall, the Christians gathered around their churches, and the Turks moved and built their houses at “Baire”, which in Turkish means hillside, in - 36 - JOURNAL "SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, CULTURE, TRADITIONS".................Volume 1a/2019 today's Upper Town “Ano Poli”. This separation was maintained until the city’s liberation in 1912. After the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the exchange of populations and properties in 1923, with the Treaty of Lausanne, the houses and the plots were abandoned by the Muslims and inhabited by refugee families who came from Asia Minor. Figure2: Inhabitants of Ano Poli (source: http://thessaloniki.photos.vagk.gr/el/photos-gr/old- photos-gr/old-photos-people-gr, 10.05.2019) Nowadays, Ano Polis is inhabited by intellectuals, artists, architects, but the majority of its inhabitants are made up of traditional bourgeoisie and middlemen. Ano Poli One of the most characteristic areas of Thessaloniki is Ano Poli. It occupies the norther nest and highest part of the old city within the Walls, it was not destroyed by the fire of 1917 and is almost entirely surrounded by the Byzantine Walls of the city. It is built amphitheatrically and overlooks the Thermaic Gulf and the plain. According to surveys, the area was not inhabited systematically during the Roman and Byzantine periods. The systematic inhabitation of the area begins after the conquest of Thessaloniki by the Turks in 1430 and especially after the 17th century. Since then the city was built away from the northern Walls for security reasons. The first residential units, the "Mahalades", were created in the southern part of the settlement and were inhabited by the Islamic Jews "Donmedes". In the beginning, the Turkish residences in Ano Poli were not close to each other, but with the installation of Turkish refugees from Bosnia in 1876, the empty plots got filled with additional residences. New neighborhoods were created (Ahmet Soubasi, Mesoun Hasan, Pinti Hasan, Iqui Sheriffe, Ischak Pasha, Soulaka, Hatzi Mumen, Busha Baba, Eski Seraij, Kasimije, Tsinarli, Hatzi Ismail, Taraktsi, Astartzi, Yakub Pasha, Hatzi Iskender, Yilan Mermer and Kazaz Hatzi Muja), resulting the area being now densely built in the late 19th century. This is how the liberation found the city in 1912. The fire of 1917 did not hit this zone of the city and many fire victims moved there. After the Asia Minor Catastrophe, in 1922, about 92,000 refugees came in Thessaloniki to find a home. The area of the Ano Poli, being a - 37 - JOURNAL "SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, CULTURE, TRADITIONS".................Volume 1a/2019 Turkish district, was an ideal place for them. The need for immediate housing of the refugees led the state to divide plots and also to allocate any free space in the area. Figure 3: Picture of the areas that got destroyed from the fire of 1917 (source: Wikipedia, https://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Thessaloniki_Fire_of_1917, 10.10.2018) The street plan that was imposed in the area in 1931 limited itself to preserve the old roads only with some widening and to construct only a few new ones. At the same time, it created a free space around the Byzantine Monuments and a green zone on both sides along the length of the City Walls. Some of the most characteristic areas of Ano Poli that retain their traditional image are the Kule Café, the area of the church Saint Nicolas Orphanos and Tsinari. 1.2. Architecture - Morphology of the Buildings of Ano Poli The architecture of the Ano Poli residences is not specific and it is not able to be classified with absolute precision in one category. During the Ottoman domination the residences of the area were similar to those found in the wider Balkan area with elements of folk Macedonian and Turkish architecture. Both kinds of residences have many similarities in the layout, the form and the use of spaces. Also, there were many Jewish residences with influences from the neo-classicism of Western Europe, in their decoration as well as in other elements, due to the origin of Jews of the city. The residences were two or three-storey buildings with symmetrical facades. Sometimes fake-pilasters, element of the classical architecture, are encountered. The openings were many and symmetrically positioned, the roof protruding from the rest of the building and covered with roof tiles of Byzantine style. The building materials that were used were mainly the wood and the stone of the area. When the main building material of the residence was the timber, then the skeleton of the building was composed of braided vertical and diagonal elements, the “pagiantes” and the skeletons were called “corestes”. The bearing structure of the building was a combination of wattle and daub or lath and plaster depending on usage. When the main building material was the stone, then the walls were cut off by sticks, the “hatilia”, and the stone walls were the bearing structure of the building. - 38 - JOURNAL "SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, CULTURE, TRADITIONS".................Volume 1a/2019 Their characteristic morphological element was the sachnisi, the closed protrusions on the floor. They are mainly on the central facade of the building but they can also be met in more than one facade. The reason for their construction was the need of their owners to expand the space and was usually made in the best room of the house, the winter rooms or the official ones.