Limassol

Address: 28is Oktovriou 257

The building was constructed some time before 1878, during the Ottoman period in Cyprus, and before the construction of the nearby St. Catherine’s catholic church. The construction of the church was completed in 1879, although the Franciscan monastery, just behind the church, was already built. John Thompson includes a photo of the building in his collection ‘Through Cyprus with the camera in the autumn of 1878 ’. Today, its main façade is on the seafront avenue of Limassol.
In its original form the building had a protruding covered wooden balcony -the so-called sahnisi- on the front façade of the first floor, and had the exact same topology with the building attached on its west side. The balcony was covered by a tiled canopy, supported on timber diagonals. The front door had a pointed lintel. During this period, the building was probably used as a wine cellar and shop, on the ground floor, and as a residence, at the first floor. A number of pointed arches in its interior supported the horizontal elements.
In the interwar period, the front door lintel was replaced with a horizontal one.
Some time, definitely before the start of the 1960s, the sunshade canopy was removed.
During the 1960s, the wooden balcony was demolished and replaced by a reinforced concrete cantilever. In addition, a number of walls were erected in the interior of the ground floor in order for the large space to be divided into smaller rooms and a number of rooms on the back side, on both floors, were demolished and rebuilt. This is related to the transformation of the ground floor to a separate house. At that time, a number of other changes -probably related to the widening of Ierousalim st.- were proposed for the east façade of the building, that were never implemented.
A number of the arches were, at some point, replaced by classic-looking architectural elements.
At some point, the attached identical building was demolished and an apartment block was erected on its position.
The building has a large back yard, surrounded by a stone fencing.
A rare pebbled floor can be still found today at the ground level.
It was included in the catalogue of listed buildings in 1992.
It used to be the house of the consul of Spain, Leonidas Papadopoulos, hence it was known as ‘The consul’s house’ in the local community. His daughter, Konstantia, and his son, the actor Christos Papadopoulos, donated the property to the Municipality of Limassol. Their wish was to establish a museum at the ground floor, a research and culture centre at the first floor and a public park at the large backyard.

Address: Agiou Andreou 253 & Othonos kai Amalias

The two-storey building was constructed at the beginning of the 1920s. It used to accommodate two individual residences, one in each floor. Its main façade is symmetrical and on the Agiou Andreou street. The entrance to the first floor is possible via a stone staircase at the side of the building.
The façades of the building are of very elaborate construction with numerus decorative stone elements. The architect-constructor who designed them tried to mimic the neoclassical models, already used in the public buildings of the period. In addition, at the centre of the main façade, a stereotype of Limassol’s bourgeois dwellings was reproduced: the loggia, behind a balcony which is supported by elaborate corbels. Particular attention was also given on the carved stone decorative details above the roof which can be found on the centre of the main façade and on the four corners.
During the first decades of its life, the building’s use was residential. It was later bought by Ioannis Schizas, a merchant dealer from Alexandria. Schizas rented the first floor to the family of Ioannis Kolakides and this is where his son Fotis Kolakides, architect and future Limassol mayor during the period 1973-1986, was raised up. In 1958, Schizas donated the building to the Municipality and it was used as the Municipal Nursing Home. It was included in the catalogue of listed buildings in 1984 and in 1985, during Kolakides’ mayorship, its full renovation was completed in order for the ground floor to house the Folk-Art Museum and the first floor the Theatre Archives. The restoration project received the Europa Nostra award in 1988. Today, the Museum can still be found on the ground floor while the first floor is the seat of the Culture Services of the Municipality.

Address: Agkiras 84

The building is located on Agkiras street, the heart of the social and commercial life of the Turkish community of Limassol, before its relocation. It is unclear when the building was built, although it must be around 1940. The original use of the building was mixed residential and commercial, as it is the case with the most buildings of this street.
The walls of the structure are made of stone and adobe while the roof consists of timber and tiles. All door and window frames are made of wood. Interesting elements of the building include the curved furrows, the false columns of the façade, the skylights and the arches on the façade and in the interior.
Originally, each of the four arc frames next to the main entrance used to have a wooden door that provided access to the shops of the ground floor. The first-floor timber balcony (sahnisi) in the inner yard of the north side is a newer addition.
It was declared a listed building in 1988.
In 1998, in an agreement with the Turkish Cypriot Property Management Service, the building was leased to a Greek Cypriot in order to be renovated and transformed into an art gallery. The renovation included a total repairing and conservation of the building as well as modifications in the interior spaces.
In particular the renovation, completed after 2000, included the complete repair and conservation of the building façade. The exterior masonry was cleaned, repaired, completed and restored to its original form. The arch openings of the façade were closed with glass. Visible stone was cleaned and already existing timber was maintained and had its worn parts replaced. The frames, doors, floors and other morphological elements were restored and reconstructed according to their original condition and the traditional standards of the area and the floor was also levelled. The roof was repaired and conserved by removing and repositioning the tiles. The existing traditional coatings were repaired and reconstructed.
In order for the building to function as gallery, a number of new spaces were required. In the interior, several dividing walls were erected and others were demolished to divide or unite spaces. In more detail, the shops of the ground floor were integrated with the sun room to create a bigger exhibition area which was connected to the new office and kitchen spaces by creating new openings. On the exterior, a new toilet and warehouse was constructed at the back of the building.

Address: Eirinis 69

The building was constructed around 1890 and it was originally used as a residence.
The original structure consisted of a central hall and four rooms –two on the left side and two on the right side of the hall. In addition to these, at the back of the main structure, there used to be a number of auxiliary structures. These were two rooms, a bathroom and a laundry room. The latter is a rudimentary construction built later. In front of the auxiliary rooms, there used to be a covered corridor connecting them with the main structure.
The wall of the main façade on Eirinis street is built of stone and coated with lime plaster which was originally painted in ocher colour. There are stone frames at the two edges, at the centre where the entrance veranda is and around the windows. The rest of the walls are made of adobe with the exception of the internal walls which are constructed using the ‘Dolma’ system, which was common on Cypriot buildings of the era and consists of a wooden frame filled with various materials.
The roof is made of timber and covered with French type tiles. There is a wooden ‘karkani’ at the front, back and side façade. The original roof of the auxiliary rooms, which was also made of timber and French tiles, had a slope towards the yard and was covering the external corridor too. Between the main and the auxiliary structure, there used to be a shelter made of timber and metal beams supported on the adobe walls and a stone column.
The floor of the central room is covered with painted tiles while the floors of the rooms surrounding it and of the auxiliary rooms consist of wooden planks.
The building was used as house and later as storage space. It was unoccupied, but on decent condition, for forty years until it was fully renovated in 2000 in order to accommodate the Kanali 6 radio station. During the renovation, the existing structures remained at their position and the required repairing, maintenance and conservation took place. An extension was added at the back of the auxiliary structures that includes three ground floor and two first floor rooms.
During the renovation the roof was maintained with the worn tiles and timber being replaced, the fascias were replaced with exact replicas of the originals, due to their very bad condition, and the roofs of the auxiliary rooms and the connecting shelter were reconstructed. All exterior and interior coatings were maintained and reconstructed, when necessary, while the wooden door and windows were repaired and repainted with oil paint and the stone decorations were conserved. In the central room, the floor was levelled and the worn tiles were replaced with others of similar type and the wooden ceiling was maintained and repainted with its worn parts also being replaced. In the surrounding rooms, the wooden floors were totally removed and reconstructed with the same materials. The floors of the newly created sanitary areas were covered with tiles and the open side of the connecting corridor was closed with frameless glass between the timber columns with its floor being covered with white marble. The new construction, which has a flat roof, was built using a wooden frame, plasterboards and bricks.
The building was included in the catalogue of listed buildings in 1982.

Address: Saripolou 32-36 & Giagkou Potamiti

The building is located at the intersection of Saripolou and Giagkou Potamiti streets, right next to the town hall of Limassol in the town centre. It is a modernist building, erected after 1940. Originally, it was probably accommodating two residences on the first floor and an office and a shop on the ground floor.
Its longer façade on Saripolou street is dominated by two horizontal zones corresponding to the two floors and the vertical staircase zone that extends to a third floor to provide access to the roof. At the intersection of the two streets, the building follows a curved path which is highlighted further with curved balconies and railings on the first floor and the roof.
The building is today part of a complex of buildings around the town hall that are linked to it and house municipal services. More specifically, its first floor is where the technical department of the municipality functions.

Address: Agiou Andreou 251 & Zinonos & Othonos kai Amalias

The building is one of the first modernist buildings in Cyprus. Its architect, Polyvios Michaelides, is considered a pioneer in the modernist architecture of the island and his work is influenced by Le Corbusier, in the office of whom in Paris he has worked.
The plot in which the building is positioned, on Agiou Andreou street, used to be the location of an open-air cinema. In 1947 the plot was purchased by the family of the doctor Panos Afstriakos and in the same year the cinema was demolished and the still-standing building was erected.
Originally the ground floor and the mezzanine accommodated ten independent shops while the first floor was used as the doctor’s clinic; hence the building was known as Afstriakos’ clinic among the people of Limassol.
The ten shops had separate entrances while the access to the first floor was possible only via the two staircases at the rear façade of the building. The floorplan of the first floor was originally composed of five patients’ rooms, the doctor’s office, an examination and a surgery room, four sanitary spaces, an auxiliary space and a long connecting corridor.
The main façade of the building is dominated by three horizontal zones: the ground and the first floor which are both on recess and the mezzanine between them. A series of circular external columns creates a narrow portico on the ground floor and a balcony on the first floor due to the recess. A series of skylights completes the mezzanine zone. On both edges of the main façade, where the two perpendicular streets intersect, the building has no corners but is instead curved. This was done for aesthetic reasons but also because of the shape of the plot.
The materials used are the common of the era with a significant difference being the introduction of reinforced concrete. This is the material used for the columns and beams. The first floor slab is made of a mixture of reinforced concrete and adobe. The external walls of the two floors on the main façade are made of stone and are load bearing while the external wall of the mezzanine and all interior floors are made of bricks.
The central part of the roof is inclined and made of timber and tiles while the roof close to the edges is flat and made of reinforced concrete. This part, as well as the small canopy, can be accessed through the smaller of the two staircases.
All floors are covered with tiles.
In 1949 a number of alterations took place that included mainly the demolition and erection of some walls on the first floor so that the individual spaces are rearranged and the functionality of the clinic improves. In addition, there was a plan for adding additional floors to the building which was never implemented.
In 1960 the first floor stopped operating as a clinic and was transformed into two residential apartments. To do so, a number of additional walls were erected. At the same time, some walls on the ground floor were demolished so that number of shops is reduced and their size is increased. The ground floor was then occupied by three shops, a mini market and a coffee shop.
During the years both floors of the building have been gradually abandoned.
A request for demolishing the building was rejected in 1996, and in 1998 it was purchased by a private company. In 2000 it was declared listed due to its significance as a building influenced by the European pre-war movements.
Works for renovating the building started in 2016 but were shortly discontinued. During this brief period, a number of walls on the ground floor and mezzanine were demolished and all the door and window frames on the first floor were removed.

Address: 16is Iouniou 11 & Dionisiou Solomou

The building is located on a corner plot opposite the Central Police Station of Limassol and next to the Water Tower, which was constructed in 1930 and is considered a symbol of the city and a monument of engineering. The building itself existed, at some form, before 1953. At that year, a number of additions and alterations were made so that two individual buildings were created in the plot, both used as houses.
The single-storey house of 1953 consisted of a central hall, a dining room, a corridor, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a toilet, a covered veranda, an uncovered veranda and a cellar, presumably at the semi-underground room at the back of the house
In 1959, a window at the main north façade of the building was transformed into a door as part of the transformation of a room to a shop.
During the 90s, a group of companies bought the plot with the intention of demolishing the two houses and erect a four-storey building with shops and offices. The development was blocked by the Municipality, mainly because of its proximity to the Water Tower. The second house that existed in the plot was eventually demolished sometime after 1998. At the time of its demolition, it was abandoned and in very bad condition. In the area it previously occupied, there is a parking lot today.
In 2000 the Municipality acquired the building so that a museum dedicated to the nearby Water Tower is developed. This development was never implemented due to various reasons. Before the acquisition, the building was used as a kindergarten.
The building was included in the catalogue of listed buildings in 2003, as a building of urban vernacular architecture with modernist neoclassical elements.
The walls, floors, frames and roof of the building follow the trends of its time. The external walls are made of stonework, covered with plaster. The floor of the central room and, partly, the front veranda is made of painted tiles while the rest of the rooms have wooden plank floors. All doors and windows, as well as their frames, are made of wood. The roof consists of timber beams and tiles.

Address: Agkiras 147

The building, located in the heart of the Turkish Cypriot quarter and very close to the Cami Cedit Mosque, was originally a school for Turkish Cypriot girls. It is unclear when it was built. The buildings surrounding it provided accommodation for the students. At some point it was used as a police station. Today, it functions as the Bi-communal Multi-functional Centre of the Municipality of Limassol.
The building’s typology is very simple. It is a single-storey building, consisting of two large rooms and a smaller one between them. All three rooms have entrances on both the front and the back of the building. A covered exterior area is created on both sides.
The appearance of the building is dominated by visible stone which is used in structural elements and decorative details. The main south entrance is surrounded by a carved stone arc and columns with engraved details. Visible stone can also be found on the frame of the small room’s south door, the frames of the windows, the niches, the corners and the base of the building and on its top part under the roof.
The walls of the building are made of stone. The floor consists of painted tiles in the covered exterior areas, tiles in the two big rooms and newer wooden parquet in the small room. All the doors and windows are made of wood while the ceilings are made of wooden planks. The roof structure is composed of timber beams and tiles.
Newer additions include the plasterboard walls that partly separate the space in the big rooms and the structure at the back of the west room that is used as a sanitary space.
The building was included in the catalogue of listed buildings in 2000 for its significance as a Turkish school building with traditional and neo-classical characteristics.