The Nicosia challenge: building the new on top of the old

While archaeological remains are a vital testament to Cyprus’ rich history which must be preserved, all too often they can pose an unenviable challenge for town planners and architects.

The need to preserve the old while building the new has been the major factor in the long delays to two of Nicosia’s biggest projects, the new town hall and the new House of Representatives.

Uncovered archaeological remains at the site of the new House of Representatives (Christos Theodorides)

Antiquities were uncovered on both sites but accommodating the finds has been dealt with very differently.

Over 20 years have passed since a call for tender was announced for a new parliament building in Nicosia.

In 1994 when the call for tender was made, the building was going to be on Ayios Georgios hill, better known as Pasydy hill.

After the contractor was assigned to the case but before work began, important antiquities were found on the site which delayed the building for over two decades.

During that time, several alternative sites were considered and as late as last month House of Representatives’ president, Demetris Syllouris, suggested giving up on Pasydy hill and building elsewhere – even the outskirts of the city – so as to avoid the wait.

After a public spat with the Nicosia mayor, Constantinos Yiorkadjis, who insisted that parliament should be in the heart of the city, the decision was finally made to go ahead with Pasydy hill.

It is now expected to be completed in 2023 with a total cost estimated at €72 million plus VAT.

In many ways, the case is similar to the Nicosia town hall in that, like the parliament, its plans date back more than 20 years to when tenders were first opened in 1996.

The nearly completed Nicosia town hall with the antiquities in the foreground (Christos Theodorides)

Construction on the town hall in Nicosia’s old town began in 2002 and it was only after work started that antiquities were found.

The project came to a standstill while the antiquities department did their work. Meanwhile, the architects had to redesign the building.

“We thought the project would be finished in five years,” said Dickon Irwin, joint architect of the building along with his wife Margarita Kritiotis.

“It’s now been more than 20.”

After redesigning the building to allow for the archaeological finds, more antiquities were found which meant rejigging the plans yet again, and so it went on. In the end, the town hall project was adapted a grand total of 18 times.

According to the municipality, the building will finally be ready for occupancy before the August 15 public holiday.

Time will tell.

Curator of antiquities at the antiquities department Despo Pilides told the Sunday Mail that the parliament building is different.

“The excavations in Ayios Georgios have been completed,” she said. This means construction on the new House of Representatives building should be able to go ahead smoothly without any hidden surprises.

The excavations took 14 years, ending in 2015 and uncovered a settlement of 11,482 sq.m dating back to the sixth century BC. The discoveries provide evidence of habitation in Nicosia dating back to the Chalcolithic period, or third millennium BC and continues through the ages to the modern days. Evidence from the Archaic and classical period supports the widely held belief that Nicosia is the site of Cyprus’ missing city-kingdom of Ledroi (Ledra).

What will happen on the site, Pilides explained is that there will be a museum and an archaeological site accessible to the public, functioning independently of the parliament’s building, which has now been moved five metres west from the archaeological site.

Like the town hall, the building has been redesigned to adjust to the findings, but the crucial point is that it has all happened before construction has started.

Better coordination by all involved parties is key to greater efficiency when it comes to dealing with antiquities, Pilides said.

“For instance, if it is a public building, it would be in everyone’s benefit if all relevant departments collaborated for things to be done in the right order, that is excavations first, followed by appropriate planning of buildings or other developments.”

Ideally, she said, the department of antiquities should be notified before tenders are procured, so that they would carry out excavation and evaluate the finds before construction could go ahead. This way there would be no need to redesign.

“Unfortunately, there have been instances when we found out about works in areas of archaeological importance through the media,” Pilides said.

How the complete town hall will look with walkways over the archaeological site

Nicosia, like most other cities in Cyprus, is built on remains from ancient times, she said.

In the case of the Nicosia town hall, construction had already begun before the department of antiquities stepped in to excavate the antiquities found. The building was redesigned, work continued, more antiquities were found and so forth.

“This incurred a lot of expense and a lot of pressures concerning the preservation of the ancient remains,” Pilides said.

Irwin puts the problem down to a lack of guidelines to decide on a proper procedure.

“You’ll find antiquities wherever you dig in Nicosia. To assume otherwise is naive at best,” he said.

In the case of the town hall, there should have been adequate site analysis before the briefing stage so that any actual or potential antiquities could be incorporated into the design from the outset and become an integral part of it, he said.

“The contractor is left waiting, the client is waiting,” for the antiquities department.

“There are no guidelines in place to provide a common ground for dialogue, no charter to assist in deciding what’s important and what isn’t. All you are left with is uncertainty.”

Architect’s impression of the new parliament building

There is also no appeal process. “It’s their opinion. You can discuss it forever, but in the end it is the judgement of the department of antiquities that counts.”

For the town hall, Irwin and Kritiotis sought the expertise of Icomos, the international council on monuments and sites, who with their own charter helped guide the process along.

“The difficulty with archaeology is that people are worried about making a wrong decision, and this leads to a fear of making any decision at all. Excavation is by its nature a destructive process – it can only be done once – and with that comes a lot of responsibility,” said Irwin.

“Some would say every stone is sacred, others might tunnel a metro through central Athens or Rome. There is a lack of consensus on the subject of urban antiquities and how to evaluate and deal with them.”

Irwin says history must be preserved but the country must also move forward. A balance has to be agreed.

Icomos advises that during excavations a high percentage of the site should remain undisturbed so as not to destroy fragile evidence that future archaeologists may be able to excavate using more advanced technology, Irwin outlined.

Once a site has been excavated, however, and finds are disclosed and open to view, piling between the finds becomes necessary. This has been practised for part of the new town hall, but is an expensive, complicated and time-consuming business and should be used only when there are no other options available.

“If you think of how long a contemporary building will last, in Europe it’s 60 to 100 years. For archaeologists, 100 years is not a significant period of time. Below it there may be antiquities 3,000 years old that are undamaged and undisturbed,” he said. “They could wait a few thousand years more to be discovered, long after the contemporary building has ceased to be.”

A section of the nearly completed Nicosia town hall with the archaeological finds in the foreground (Christos Theodorides)

Irwin said slab foundations can be built on top of undisturbed or partially dug sites and nothing will happen to any potential antiquities below. The actual load of the building (even up to six storeys) will not affect the buried remains.

On the other hand, “a basement is a no-no”, because it displaces the findings, removing all traces of history. That then means no underground parking.

“Architects generally are quite good at following rules and terms when explicit,” developing a design out of often contradictory specifications, Irwin said.

Difficulties arise however when major changes are requested after a design is completed – at the end of the process.

“That puts the project back to square one and is a tremendous waste of resources for all involved,” Irwin said.

In the case of the parliament building, the specifications have changed to a certain extent so as to preserve the archaeological site; this was possible because construction had not yet begun.

“The plan of the building has since been partly modified to accommodate the museum and archaeological site,” Pilides said.

The museum and site are expected to open to the public, hopefully by next year, she noted, independently of the parliament building.

Meanwhile, the decision to house the latter on Pasydy hill has made Nicosia mayor Constantinos Yiorkadjis particularly happy. He said this ensured “the protection and accessibility to the antiquities as well as the functionality of the building without affecting the aesthetic effect of the original design”.