Abstract
The current research examines the transformation of the rural and urban landscape during the Ottoman Period across modern Greek territory and the relationship between those changes and the cultural as well as political perceptions of the Ottoman elites, from roughly 1400 to 1800. The study embraces the view of the importance of the landscape as a crucial factor in the birth and development of civilizations and it attempts to confirm this view by projecting it in intentional examples of organization of the built space in Greece, focusing, as already mentioned, on the Ottoman period. Those aforementioned examples highlight the influence of the political and cultural trends in the Ottoman court on specific landscape formations, which reflect the social structure of the Ottoman Empire and constitute at the same time, the spatial inscription of all political decisions. The methodology adopted in this research with regards to the exploration of the relationship between the building units and the natural surroundings in the selected case studies is based on the theoretical investigation of the cultural background of the Ottomans and their association to the Byzantine heritage, supplemented by in situ research in thoroughly selected case studies across Greece. The results of this combined methodological toolset attested to the fact that the Ottomans, through the use of spatial and cultural elements deriving either from their oriental background or from the local established ones, altered the spatial qualities of their surroundings in a way that the emerging political ideologies, the financial power, and the imperial glory of the Ottomans were manifested into the landscape.
Highlights
This year Greece is celebrating its 200th anniversary of independence from the Ottomans
Priority was given to all signs demonstrating the ottoman rule such as mosques, palaces, and other public buildings that were in most cases completely demolished sooner or later
For the Byzantines, as well as the Ottomans, nature was perceived as a system of symbols created by a divine power to facilitate communication with humanity
Summary
This year Greece is celebrating its 200th anniversary of independence from the Ottomans. The free Greek Lands and their cities were drastically remodeled in a way that bore no resemblance to their past ottoman looks. Priority was given to all signs demonstrating the ottoman rule such as mosques, palaces, and other public buildings that were in most cases completely demolished sooner or later It was in many ways a landscape “Greekification” which tried to ignore what was there before. Changes were so drastic that within years after the revolution, most of the Greek cities of the free newborn state bore little resemblance to their ottoman form. This is perhaps the most recent and striking example of politically motivated spatial remodeling which Greek lands experienced. It is self-evident that neoclassicism and nationalism, the two leading esthetic and political ideologies of Europe, have penetrated the former Ottoman lands and are here to stay, freely and consciously chosen by the new state’s leading Elite [1]
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