STR_217

Address: Megalou Alexandrou 21 1st historical phase: The building was constructed around 1920 (in 1925 according to DLS ) and in its original typology was a characteristic example of a traditional ground floor house of the historic core of Strovolos. It has been used as a house through all of its lifetime and it is occupied today. It consisted of the three basic rooms -hall, dining room and bedroom- and two auxiliary rooms -kitchen and bathroom. Its main façade is located along the street border while the main entrance leads directly to the central room -the sun hall- where doors on both sides give access to the other rooms. The building is built partly from local sandstone and partly from adobe. The roof is duo pitched and consists of timber beams and roman tiles. The house is built on a neo-classical style, with influences from rural Cypriot architecture. An interesting element of the building is the carved stone frame of the entrance door with its wrought iron skylight. In addition, at the cellar room there are roof beams made of original tree trunks. 2nd historical phase: At some point, between its construction date and 2005, a number of interventions took place that corrupted the character of the building. In particular, the roof tiles were replaced by asbestos sheets, the original flooring and the window sills were replaced by mosaic and cement plaster was added at the walls. The DLS portal mentions a renovation in 1994 which describes as ‘full’, for which there is no details at all at the Municipality file. It could be a system error or it could refer to the aforementioned renovation. The house was included in the catalogue of listed buildings in 2004. 3rd historical phase: It was renovated in 2007. The renovation included a restoration of the existing structure as well as an addition of a two-story extension to accommodate two bedrooms and two bathrooms. This renovation included, among others: • Repair, cleaning, maintenance and completion of the external masonry and restoration to its original form • Removal of all incompatible plasters from exposed stone masonry and reconstruction of completely existing traditional coatings (of plaster-straw type) • Demolition of subsequently added elements such as the bathroom and the wall under the arc • Removal of the asbestos roof and reconstruction of the roof to its original form and at the correct elevation. • Repair of the entrance gate and of the carved stone portal • Demolition of a part of the old masonry: o between the proposed kitchen and the dual-chamber o to create blind shallow frames • Addition of a fireplace • Construction of an additional two-story building, to house two bedrooms and two bathrooms, at the west side of the plot so that the two buildings together form an ‘L’ shape. The building is made out of a metal structure and light concrete blocks. • Lengthening of the façade windows to preserve the original traditional proportions • Lengthening and widening of the doors at the south side to increase natural lighting • Addition of sunshades in the yard • Addition of paving at the yard