For everyone who knows the “Taliban-style” regulations for preservation of walled Nicosia, the Eleftheria Square project came as a complete surprise. It is hard to believe. This project ignores the fundamental principles of reconstruction. It does not have any respect for people-owners of a place, it disruptively violates an existing built environment, it does not pay attention to the local culture, traditions or customs and departs from the time-tested principle of evolution.
This project looks as if brought from another planet and forcibly superimposed on a historic place which is going to be listed as the UNESCO heritage site.
A famous architect Zaha Hadid, the only woman who received the Pritzker Prize – the highest award for the profession – has shown an inexplicable contempt for Nicosia. She did not visit the place and her vision of the square is based on the “Google satellite image”. This is a provocative arrogance and a cause of being totally out of touch with conditions at the particular site.
Such a revolutionary project cannot be built in the centre of an old town with a very distinctive character. Nicosia is not a newly constructed capital like Canberra (1927), Brasilia (1960), Islamabad (1966, designed by Greek architects) and Abuja (1991).
Even the Parthenon was built not in the centre, but in the Acropolis (suburb) of Athens. When in 1973 the Tokyo University of Education was transferred to a new and very eccentric campus at Tsucuba, some famous scientists refused to go there because of a broken link with traditions and because of the uncommon and unfriendly environment.
There is also one disappointing statement by Zaha Hadid. She defined her style as “anti-constructivism”. Whatever this means, it goes against common sense and increases the already existing rather wide gap between architects and engineers.
Architecture consists of structures, i.e. structure is a raw material of architecture.
Irrespective on the adoption or dismissal of this project, the town-planning regulations for the walled city of Nicosia must be changed conceptually. The existing ones have proved to be a complete disaster. The officials who themselves do not live in walled Nicosia have a strange “love for ruins” and create ruins progressively.
They have developed a “preservation policy” which suffocates any activity and destroys the town. Instead of preserving and rehabilitating, these rules have transformed old Nicosia into a labyrinth of ramshackle, decaying, rotting and crumbling buildings which are in a desperate need of demolition or of fundamental upgrading. A lot of buildings are structurally unsafe and are in a danger of all-out collapse. Many of them can easily go down even under the slightest earthquake. The officials do not have any authority over natural phenomena, the ravage of time and a perpetual accumulation of damage.
The centre of Nicosia is turned into a very problematic and uncomfortable residence for some elderly people who cannot afford to move out, into a ghetto for foreign workers, into a place attractive for all kinds of social drop-outs. Some houses are inhabited only by birds, rats, stray cats and snakes. It is a total decline without hope. It is a shame for the whole of Cyprus.
The city was originally built to long obsolete regulations and it is practically impossible to bring it up to contemporary requirements. Many buildings need to be demolished. This will give way for a real development.
n Dr Savvas Levtchitch is Professor of Civil Engineering at the Frederick Institute of Technology, Nicosia
