Amid the hustle of downtown Nicosia stands an elegant building that has passed through many hands before becoming its current academy of music. ANNITA LANITOU investigates
A TRADITIONAL Neoclassic building in the heart of Nicosia was painstakingly restored over a three year period and now houses the ARTE academy of music, the latest in many uses since it was built in 1915.
The 618m² building is a rare example of the remarkable architecture of its age: the morphology and neoclassical building architecture of Nicosia. Neoclassicism is said to be the modern version of classical building and buildings of this style are usually low rise, rarely over three stories, are characterised by symmetry and harmony and follow elements of Classical Greek architecture such as columns.
The stone of that period – limestone — can be seen in the covered entrance of the house, featuring barred columns and hewed arches and pilasters with their capitals. The openings are characterised by symmetry and the homogeneity of the original doors and windows. ARTE Academy of Music consists of three levels. The first floor is accessed from the north through a wooden curved staircase. The composition of the central area of the house with rooms around a central hallway has been maintained and restored. The semi-basement consists of three longitudinal areas with east and south doors.
The present owner of ARTE, Pitsa Spyridaki, says the building, which was in a miserable state before renovation, has seen many different incarnations since it was built. It was built as a home and the owner lived on the ground floor, now Events Room A with a capacity for 200. A restoration study also provided for the creation of a unitary area in a circular format with a thrust stage.
The top floor of the house was rented out to a lodger. Pitsa believes that the semi-basement was used as a workshop by the owner’s wife in order to make halloumi. At some point the house was sold to Pitsa’s husband’s grandfather who lived on the top floor and rented out the rest of the house to lodgers who partitioned and shared the semi-basement.
One of the reasons the building is of such historic value regarding the evolution of construction techniques in Cyprus is because of the remarkable arched and vaulted appearance of the inside of the semi-basement, which gained the appropriate height Pitsa says by the builders having to dig downwards. This exciting room, now Events Room B, is used for exhibitions and other cultural events. Doors lead from this room onto a beautiful landscaped garden.
When the house passed to Pitsa’s husband in 1965, the couple used the top floor as a music school and the first floor was a restaurant and after that it was rented out to KEM, the bus service which also used the semi-basement to store their files and paperwork. During the 1974 invasion, Pitsa said part of the basement was also used by a man who wanted to hide and safeguard a number of paintings by late Cypriot artist Christoforos Savvas. He later turned the space into a pub for a while.
The couple decided three and a half years ago to renovate the house even though they knew what a mammoth task lay ahead. The first floor was partitioned into many rooms and they decided to transform it into one big room to accommodate assemblies, lectures, meetings, press conferences and seminars of cultural content. The new marble flooring now changes to direction to indicate where separate rooms previously stood.
“The restoration project aimed to preserve the architectural appearance of the building while at the same time making it work as an art center — to revive it through cultural events by projecting its character and value through various activities and to enable it to function in a modern environment with climate control and acoustic facilities and facilities for the disabled.
“Everybody involved in this restoration project worked with a their body and soul, it was truly a labour of love,” Pitsa said.
The rooms on the upstairs level of the house have all been maintained and fitted with beautiful parquet floors. Each room has been painted in a different shade of blue, except one which is peach. These colours promote a sense of tranquility and well being. “These colours were the colours used way back in the early 20th century and so I decided to keep up this tradition,” Pitsa said.
Close to the chaos of Makarios Avenue, ARTE gives an indication of how grand the area must once have been.
