A house in Santorini

Nature, Geometry, Architecture
A house on Santorini

by Agnes Couvelas - Panagiotatou architect

While preparing a lecture I delivered at the Athens Technical University in autumn 1994, I had the opportunity of systematising the ideas and stimuli that led me to design a specific building.

I find it particularly interesting to return to a work that already exists and to examine it with hindsight and a critical eye. During the stages of planning and construction it is impossible to control the flow of one's thoughts, for these are never a single chain of reasoning. Emotionally involved with the subject, the architect does not seek to translate action into words, for he considers this superfluous, which indeed it is to a large degree.

Why should one attempt retrospection, rationalization, putting one's work 'into words'?

The architect's main medium of expression is the design, the visual representation. A thought, an idea is only complete if it is 'registered in form. Conversely, a visual stimulus is often sufficient to generate a new idea without the intervention of words.

The creative processes are to a large degree subconscious, and logic is usually summoned afterwards, to check and to define the parameters referred to in them.'

I am not concerned here with the obvious need of presenting the work to the client, because there the rules of the game are totally different. In-depth analysis is not required, while the arguments developed usually focus on functional matters and construction costs.

What I am interested in is juxtaposing the architectural action to the logos as primal phenomenon of the intellect, in transferring to words the thinking behind the design and especially the initial decisions. Such a quest frequently leads to new conclusions that help us to recognize an architect's overall course and open up of new roads for his/her future development.

This is another aspect of the more general issue of architectural criticism, whose role and usefulness are frequently doubted. I do not subscribe to this view, nor does it fall within the compass of our discussion. I merely note that in cases where the work is judged by a specialist critic, the aim may be different (e.g. its inclusion in some architectural idiom). And of course it is not essential that the critic's viewpoint coincides with the architect's.

The work I have chosen to analyse is a house on Santorini. On this highly sensitive island I confronted amplified problems concerning the relationship between building and environment, modem construction and tradition, as well as the role and meaning of architecture today.

The house as a building type is a subject familiar to us all, and I shall here bypass general questions of function, in order to focus on the integration of the building with the particular place through its form.

Before all else, the following basic questions should be answered:

-which principles will govern the synthesis?

-what is the meaning the building will express?

-how does one build in such a highly charged place?

Santorini today is being built up -I should say levelled down - in exactly the same way as the rest of Greece. The mass production of shoddy modem constructions demanded by and directed at a consumer-oriented public is absolutely alien to architectural inquiry. A barbarous monotony is reproduced at a rapid rate, and moreover in the name of preserving tradition and under strict building legislation. Virtually the same building type is applied willy-nilly, with the same formal vocabulary, that is confined to repeating the vault, the arch and the long narrow openings on the fronts. On Santorini one sees in all its glory the impasse into which a mechanical application of morphological canons in such an abased system of building production leads.

In designing the building discussed here I looked for new modes of expression. I did not analyse the reasons for the individual choices at the time. Only now, after ordering my thoughts, am I in a position to explain many of them.

I tried first to analyse the roots of the present way of building on Santorini, because the phenomenon is not due only to the ease of the process - from the building permit to the construction with a more or less standardized system, nor is it confined to the less culturally aware. It enjoys a tacit acceptance that certainly has a deeper cause. But how did this situation come about?

The devotion to pseudo-traditional morphology must be the outcome of tendencies which begin from the need to preserve the cultural past and end in a nostalgic copying of styles. This imitating, this aping has nothing in common with respect for tradition; it belies a deeper desire to return to another age, an illogical bent for reviving an idealized past. We turn our back on the future and create a hybrid present, incapable of expressing the meaning of our age.

Traditional buildings, constructed locally of materials available and built by the inhabitants themselves, constituted an extension of the natural environment (fig. 1). In sharp contrast, designed architecture initiates a nonstop opposition to nature, as principal perceived representation. An endless series of applications, the one succeeding the other in different forms, are associated with 'the house', just as a whole range of interpretations are attached to an ancient tragedy. What is bequeathed by the preceding generations is transmuted, so giving birth to the new.

Today it seems as if time has stood still. Obsessed with the same forms, devoid of imagination and creative inspiration, we treat the house as something static, immutable. One may well ask whether this approach expresses some inner fear and insecurity. Perhaps the nostalgia for the rural landscape and reconstituting tradition is the result of distancing from nature and a misguided endeavour to come closer. For sterile copying, such as we see around us too often, can never be a creation that springs from man's identification with nature; it can never be anything but a mute image that has lost such a connection.

Today we spend our life in cities built with industrial materials, in a man-made environment. We have access to an enormous range of information, images and materials. New representations are created on computer screens. We are more and more dependent on the mass media of communications that create an artificial environment. We are bombarded with images of virtual reality, immaterial simulations of the real world. And, naturally, we are unable to assimilate so many new perceptions. Perhaps the preservation of the traditional vocabulary is related also to this human inability. Perhaps it functions as a secure legacy of collective assurance.

We should not of course ignore the tardiness that characterises the architectural process, a tardiness exacerbated by the accelerating paces of our era.

In what direction should one turn in attempting to change that climate?

Here we should seek the main role of the architectural avant-garde, that can be seen today in the expression and interpretation of developments, in the exercise of polemic and in submitting proposals. In recent years designed architecture has been regarded as an isolated, autonomous aesthetic phenomenon, as a spatial scheme. Perhaps the emphasis on the opposite viewpoint, that is its appraisal as something rooted in the intellect and the human, might open up new roads in architectural creation.

I believe that one of the main aims of architecture today should be to re-link man with nature.

Architecture should reflect man's concern with the depletion of natural resources and his distancing from nature.
We should approach this by:

using methods and materials that exploit but do not exhaust natural resources,
enriching and diversifying the constructions by expressing the identity of the natural and the cultural landscape,
linking buildings with history and tradition through the use of current terms and vocabulary,
utilising contemporary design media for this purpose.

In this manner the aim of every creative process will be met: the transmission of a contemporary meaning. An architectural project should have its own internal message, a transferable idea that defines its relationship with the values (positive and negative) of our culture and with nature.

I would like to say more about two of the above stipulations, since they constitute personal proposals and need support.

Enrichment and diversity

We began with the observation that nowadays the identity of regions is tending to disappear, as they are led towards an imposed homogeneity:

at a national level with the degenerative copying of elements of tradition,
at a global level with the generalised use of standardized industrial materials.

To the question whether reinforcing diversity is desirable, I cite A. Rapoport, who answers affirmatively. According to him, diversity maintains and produces complexity on the next higher scale, a quality that is desirable from the viewpoint of interest. Diversity is also important for the future. In analogy with genetic differentiation, it safeguards the knowledge and experience that have been embodied in various landscapes. Rapoport is of course referring to cultural landscapes, in which nature is contained as a generative parameter.

But how will the wealth and diversity of cultural landscapes be preserved without these being frozen, copied or becoming museums?

The variety of those special material & cultural formations that we call 'cultural landscapes' is produced by the differential interaction over time of cultural traits, desires and constraints of the various social groups with the rich goods of the earth.

However, the second component of this binary relationship, culture, tends towards homogeneity as differences are abolished between the social groups that formerly were giving to a place, especially to traditional settlements, a distinctive character. Nature on the other hand is certainly more resistant to the levelling processes, even though interference with the landscape is leading increasingly to its exhaustion.

At this point I believe that the architect can intervene by creating new forms of identity based on local qualities, by seeking out the dominant features of each landscape, by reading the peculiarities and geometry of nature. Such an intervention will lead to the formulation of archetypes that will play a significant role in reinforcing the identity of a cultural landscape, since these will be expressed in the architectural synthesis and incorporated in the constructions.

The expressive media

Man has always been fascinated by the expression of nature through geometry. Plato's Timaeus presents the earliest known identification of the Creator as the 'Architect of the Universe'. For Plato the architect constructed the world on the basis of the principles of geometry. Timaeus is an attempt to interpret nature in its widest sense on the basis of arithmetic and geometry.

Religions such as Judaism and Islam prohibit sculpted representations, which they perceive as man's endeavour to compete with God as Creator. God as Unity is everything. However, the visible world has multiple, manifold and opposing forms. We should not seek God in the multiplicity of forms, but in the unifying forces that govern and define them, that is in the principles of the shape that is determined by the degrees of an angle or a number. Their synthesis is geometry (fig. 2).

The perception of architecture as the incarnation of geometry is encountered later in Gothic churches (fig. 3).

In each historical period the design methods that prevailed characterize the spirit of their age. In the 19th century, in the Romantic period, the architect created with the help of drawings that were more like paintings rather than construction plans. In the major movements of the 20th century, such as Constructivism, in Schools such as the Bauhaus, and finally in the Modem Movement, the naturalistic element retreated.

Today, with the widespread use of computers, mathematics and geometry are once more playing an important role in our life. The devotion of certain architects to computers is tantamount to cult (fig. 4). In extreme cases, with the introduction of mathematical rules into composition, an attempt is made to deduce form automatically, without the intervention of other parameters.

This goal of absolute geometricity bespeaks our ever growing dependence on complex computer systems. The allusion of art to nature often takes place in geometric terms too. 100 years have already elapsed since the birth of geometric abstractionism and the overthrow of figural representation in painting.

I believe that the Zeitgeist can be rendered in architecture on geometric terms, that the peculiar identity of a place can be condensed and rendered geometrically with a modem vocabulary. The ease of producing designs today gives the designer the ease to seek new forms, to improve his study and to explore other possibilities. All these ultimately enrich the architects' vocabulary, leading to a variety of integrated solutions.

The modern identity of Santorini

I shall now try to define what composes that rare and autonomous aesthetic phenomenon that is Santorini (fig. 5).

Today the island's natural landscape, friable and eroded, is scarred by the ravages of time.

Harsh and impressive, the thick strata of lava, born of a titanic natural force, recede before our eyes from the incessant action of wind and waves (fig. 6). The varied hues of the volcanic ash contrast with the deep blue of the sea and the green of the vineyards. As the light is trapped in this geological formation it suffuses everything and even the mutest structures emit a melody. Tremendous colour transformations are effected during the day, by the light and the winds: Boreas 'bom in the bright heaven', Zephyrus 'fierce-blowing', according to Homer.

The sea itself, sometimes friendly sometimes hostile, attracts and repels. The magnificent spectacle of the caldera is imposed as a void ,as a lack of land that subsided and submerged (fig. 7).

Mass, erosion, void, polymorphism, contrasts; these are the archetypal forms encountered on Santorini.

Within this capricious natural formation, the villages, dug-out of the earth, clinging to cliffs and clefts in the ground, penetrating deep into the soft pozzuolana, so as not to be swept away by the wind & rain (fig. 8), so as not to be reduced to mounds of sand like those that form in front of the cliffs on the beach, to be washed away by the tide.
Concealed beneath tons of pumice and volcanic ash is the prehistoric civilization, by ironic coincidence preserved intact to this day, protected by the very force that destroyed it (fig. 9).

The remains of all historical periods on the island are significant, from Hellenistic ancient Thera to the dispersed Byzantine churches and the Frankish fortresses.

The study for the house

Throughout the design process, from the first moment to the last, the place, as a natural and a man-made environment, was the constant reference point; the rocks on the beach at Vlychada, the strong summer breeze (meltemi) in the caldera, the fortress (goulas) at Emboreion. To capture the essence of these features, so that the building expresses something of them, became almost an obsession.

The house is at Akrotiri, a settlement that has so far largely escaped the pressures of tourist development, and so authentic features still survive. Though badly damaged, the goulas dominates the village (fig. 10), while some dug-out (hyposkapha) and Neoclassical houses still exist, even though they have not been listed. The village retains its close-knit web and to a considerable degree its scale, primarily in its eastern and southern sectors, but the cobbled streets have disappeared under a concrete surface and every now and then remnants of the past are lost irrevocably.

Located in a conspicuous position, on a hill laying just a few metres west above the settlement, the building has a panoramic view of the island.

The slope to the south remains unspoilt, protected by the archaeological zone of Akrotiri, and there are none of the hastily constructed, bulky three-storey buildings that now mar the fragile landscape of the rest of the island.

The building is a vacation home for a family of four, the children already being students having their own timetable. So each member of the family needs a separate living space that will allow independence of movement and minimize disturbance of others.

The seasonal use of the house, mainly in the summer and occasionally for brief visits at other times of the year, determines other important parameters, such as outdoor living most of the day, limited use of internal spaces, rudimentary cooking facilities.

A significant feature of the house site is its exposure to the strong winds, mainly northerlies that blow all year round and north-easterlies in the summer.

Handling the wind was one of my first concerns. The shell had to be sturdy without being sealed, without curbing direct contact with nature. I wanted direct views of the island, particularly to the north (towards the caldera) and east (towards Profitis Ilias and the southern plain), without the frequent recurrence of window panes.

I sought analogies in tree trunks. The bark rough, eroded, protective, the core untouched, forming well defined concentric circles (fig. 11).

So the shell of the building was eroded. It was perforated in order to trap the wind and light, yet it continues to offer protection. The effects of external forces were imprinted on the shell, exactly as on the bark of trees (fig. 12).

Funnels were dug into its mass, ending in slit-like outlets. As air enters it is accelerated and as it exits it functions as a protective curtain, deflecting the wind that beats upon it (fig. 13).

The digging out of the mass - which alludes to the local technique of dug-out dwellings (hyposkapha) - that is the intervention from outside inwards, was repeated in the inner space layout. Small independent units, not connected together internally, were created within the same mass of material.

The outdoor space between the two wings of the upper storey is the unifying meeting point, the locus of communal activities -eating, relaxation, recreation. As a void, this space makes the imaginary cube of the building incomplete, since an important section of its body is missing, as if it has been removed. The perimetric elements partially recompose the form, just as the islands around the volcano are remnants of the edge of prehistoric Strongyle, just as the houses preserved in the excavation, two - and three - storeted, challenge one to reconstruct their form in one's imagination.

The external walls of the main building mass have a slight tilt, recalling the goulas at Emboreion (fig. 14). A lone building, like the goulas, the house 'sits' heavily, firmly rooted in the ground so as not to be blown away by the wind, while another section of the building appears detached, as if it has come from afar, like the enormous boulders hurled by the volcano. Together with the neighbouring columns of the veranda they also bring to mind the form of the cliffs on the beaches, that stand precariously, their base eaten away by the sea (fig. 15).

The low vault of the upper storey - reference to the island's ubiquitous vaulted structures - disrupts every axis of symmetry in the interior and is itself directed towards the view. As it meets the walls it leaves different traces, consistent with the asymmetry in the arrangement of the openings. These in their turn seek to open a dialogue with the multiple windows (polyparathyra) of the prehistoric city (fig. 16). Irregular in shape, like accidental creations of protracted erosion, they register the concept of time. The traces of actual wear and tear that time will bring in the future will combine with the original form, reinforcing the idea.

Blocks of pumice from Santorini, that offer good thermal insulation, were used in the construction. That light, fairly soft material can be cut and carved easily, allowing the formation of various elements. A thick layer of pumice was placed on the flat roofs for thermal insulation. The exterior was plastered with coarse sand of the region, giving the surfaces a pinkish hue.

The floors were covered with cement tiles made of local sand in a similar hue. So the colour of the entire building is akin to the environment, since the materials that were used came from it. Matt dark purple paint was used on the wooden door and window frames. No acrylic paint was used on the outside, as it is the usual case unfortunately. The acrylic -white usually- that remains cold and unchanged, wounds the landscape like a foreign body, for it does not mellow like whitewash which, applied over an uneven surface and oxidized by time, interacts with light giving quality to the volumes.

Overall, an attempt was made to employ building methods and materials that local workmen are familiar with. So they easily followed instructions to create forms and elements which they encountered for the first time.

The building was completed in spring 1994.

In creating this house I wanted to propose another way of 'building today in the Greek cultural landscape'. Greece is, of course, anything but a fertile land for developing architectural thinking. Every positive element is usually throttled or tainted in the negative climate, and future prospects are far from optimistic.

However, can one deny the internal torture of inquiry? Can one stop hoping that, to the best of one's ability, one can contribute to changing the status quo?