Videos by Maria Vidali
Pre-recorded presentation in the conference Experi- ential Design - Rethinking Relations, a confe... more Pre-recorded presentation in the conference Experi- ential Design - Rethinking Relations, a conference organized by Florida State University, AMPS and PARADE, conference paper is under
revision for publication in Amps, 18th-20th of January 2020.
The article which followed is under the process of publication.
"The aim of this paper is to reveal the importance of a deeper understanding of space and place prior to the design process. It also aims to reveal the importance of the role of the architect, irrespectively of drawings and modelling tables, but mostly connected to the world of text and language." 15 views
Pre-recorded presentation and article in the proceedings of the conference Education, Design and ... more Pre-recorded presentation and article in the proceedings of the conference Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World, at Stevens Institute, New York / New Jersey, organized by AMPS and PARADE, 17th-19th of June 2019.
Published article which followed: "Narrative, Metaphor, Fiction: How Might They Serve Architectural Education", In: Ellyn Lester (ed.), AMPS Proceedings Series 17.1. Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World. Stevens Institute of Technology, USA. 17 – 19 June (2019). pp.63-68. Editor. Ellyn Lester. ISSN 2398-9467
"Architecture is faced with a crisis today: it concerns the loss of novelty and the search for a highly technological, sustain- able function, though disconnected with humanity and environmental reality. Can young architects still conceive of and create spaces communicating the complexity and novelty of life?How could architecture be taught and perceived before the built work?" 21 views
Papers by Maria Vidali
isdr [with design], Reinventing Design Modes, Proceedings of the 9th Congress of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR 2021), 2022
The village of Kampos, a place of vernacular architecture on the Cycladic island of Tinos in Gree... more The village of Kampos, a place of vernacular architecture on the Cycladic island of Tinos in Greece, is of a great importance to me. This importance stems from the fact that today architects, planners and designers are focused on new contemporary sustainable ways of living, which remain outside the human way of living and the complexity of architecture, or with things connected with social life, spatial qualities and the environment. Meanwhile, private ownership, along with the way the state handles ownership in general, make boundaries appear stiff and as elements of division and autonomy. Do we actually know what it is to live together with a broader understanding of the role of architecture and the environment? Despite our contemporary and highly technological way of living, this way of living and spatial understanding in the village, the continuing habits and patterns of the past, still contributes to a physiologically and psychologically balanced lifestyle in both the private and the public realms. How people live in Kampos could be a response to some of the prejudices and difficulties that affect many other cultures in our globalised world.
Αυτή η διπλωματική εργασία διερευνά το αγροτικό τοπίο και τη ζωή του χωριού στον Κάμπο, ένα χωριό... more Αυτή η διπλωματική εργασία διερευνά το αγροτικό τοπίο και τη ζωή του χωριού στον Κάμπο, ένα χωριό στο ελληνικό νησί Τήνος. Η Τήνος είναι νησί του Αιγαίου με μακρά ιστορία στην γεωργία. Στον Κάμπο, ένα από τα παλαιότερα αγροτικά χωριά της Τήνου, τα όρια που δημιουργούνται από τα χαμηλά πέτρινα τείχη/ ξηρολιθιές και μονοπάτια καθορίζουν κυρίως το αγροτικό τοπίο που διαπερνά τη ζωή του χωριού και τη δομή του. Το τοπίο εμφανίζεται ήμι-τεχνητό, δεδομένου της κατασκευής αμέτρητων σειρών καλλιεργήσιμων κορυφογραμμών και επιπέδων γης. Αυτή η εργασία αφορά τα όρια που αποκαλύπτονται μέσα από κείμενα, τον χώρο, την κίνηση και τη συνήθεια. Τα όρια δημιουργούν μια σειρά από μεθοριακούς χώρους. Αντιπροσωπεύουν περιοχές - ή μάλλον καταστάσεις - επιτρέποντας διαφορετικά συνυπάρχοντα επίπεδα αλληλεπίδρασης, τα οποία είναι αμφότερα αμφίσημα και μπορούν να μετασχηματιστούν μέσω διαπραγματεύσεων. Η διαπραγμάτευση δεν θα ήταν δυνατή χωρίς τη γλώσσα και την αφήγηση. Η γλώσσα αποτελείται από κοινοτικές μ...
European Journal of Sustainable Development, 2015
At the area of Polemou Kampos, land was mainly public and belonged mostly to Isternia and Kalloni... more At the area of Polemou Kampos, land was mainly public and belonged mostly to Isternia and Kalloni communities. There, a man has been constantly buying land; he may be actually a businessman who wants to sell this land to a corporation, presenting himself as an 'ecologist'. This man is in fact searching for very old contracts when things were not very clear. But, problems of access have started to arise in the area; villagers usually took shortcuts, jumping over the low boundary stone walls of each property to reach their own properties when there was no direct path. Where pathways existed in the past, representing a communal gesture of goodwill on the part of the villagers that had no objection to this kind of communal use, there this man is now putting fences. Purchasing a large part of the land, fencing it and creating enclosures, this man has been blocking villagers' access and has broken the continuity of the network connecting village land with other villages' property. A very new, uncommon situation has started to arise for the villagers of the area, something that alters what existed there before." 1
EAEA15, Monograph of the 15th Biennial In- ternational Conference of the European Architectural Envisioning Association, 2021
Vidali, Maria, “Narrative, metaphor and fiction serving architecture and design”, EAEA15, Monogra... more Vidali, Maria, “Narrative, metaphor and fiction serving architecture and design”, EAEA15, Monograph of the 15th Biennial In- ternational Conference of the European Architectural Envisioning Association,Huddersfield, United Kingdom, edited by Danilo Di Mascio © Copyright the University of Huddersfield, 2021, p.287, September 1-3, 2021 .
Introduction
This article explores the farming landscape and village life in Kampos, a village on the Greek island of Tinos. Tinos is an Aegean island with a long histo- ry of agriculture. In Kampos, one of the oldest farming villages of Tinos, bound- aries created by low stone walls and alleyways primarily define the farming landscape that permeates village life and its structure. The landscape appears semi-artificial, through the construction of countless boundaries, rows of cultiva- tion ridges and terraces. This article is about boundaries revealed through space, texts, movement and habit, Boundaries which represent areas -or rather situa- tions- enabling different co-existing levels of interaction that are ambiguous and can be transformed through negotiation. Negotiation is not possible without lan- guage and narrative. Language consists of communal metaphors, stories and fic- tional beliefs that bind and connect a small community together in a farming landscape where the quality of life remains closely connected to nature, architec- ture, and the interplay between private and public realm.
The presence, absence, and negotiation of boundaries in the village, as well as the life that flourishes between them and their relationship to men, women and ownership, unfold through fictional and scholarly narratives drawn from interviews with the villagers from Kampos. Through these narratives, we see how a different situation of ownership and bonding arises when boundaries in space are obscure or create a liminal in-between space of negotiation and com- munication.
EDITORS:Graham Cairns, Eric An. AMPS PROCEEDINGS SERIES 18.1 ISSN 2398-9467., 2020
The analysis and objectives of "Understanding and Imagination before Designing”, a course that I ... more The analysis and objectives of "Understanding and Imagination before Designing”, a course that I recently taught, was a way for me to implement in design Gadamer’s claim that “in language and only in it, can we meet what we never ‘encounter’ in the world, because we are ourselves and merely what we mean and what we know from ourselves.” This knowledge from ourselves also involves emotions, which represents another way in which we should connect with space and environment. More specifically, based both on the traditional architecture of a village of a Greek island and the structure of the city, the course analyses life in each place. This happens primarily through the creation of files and through the understanding a new ar- chitect needs before imagining and creating a new piece of architecture in a village’s tradi- tional structure or a city’s contemporary environment. What should an architect know beyond the structure of a building in order to analyse and understand an existing spatial and social situation in depth? In architectural theory, tools of interpretation are given through different approaches, so that architecture can be understood as a set of practices traditionally used to connect people with their community, place, religion, and environment but primarily with themselves. The course invited students to understand this relationship between traditional or contemporary life and the complexity of architecture, place and environment. This was achieved and revealed through their own fictional narratives as a synthesis of their historical, social, ethical, spatial and urban perception of a place they had never been to before. Reality emerged through a fictional/imaginary plot which helped them anchor their experience. They became part of the chain that is inherently connected with emotions, ethics and solidarity.
ADA magazine 55 ISSN 1997-7891 VOLUME THIRTEEN ISSUE FIFTY FIVE 2020 , 2020
This narrative unfolds in Kampos, a village on the Greek island of Tinos. Tinos is an Aegean isl... more This narrative unfolds in Kampos, a village on the Greek island of Tinos. Tinos is an Aegean island with a long history of agriculture. In Kampos, one of the oldest farming villages of Tinos, boundaries created by low stone walls and alleyways primarily define the farming landscape that permeates village life and its structure. The landscape appears semi-artificial, given the construction of countless rows of cultivation ridges and terraces.
Village society in Kampos is consisted primarily of family units. Some of the members of the family work in the family fields caring for the family wealth, economy and social status, while at the same time they constitute the village community, which acts also as a bigger family body.
Narrative and stories bind and connect small communities together, while narratives can allow different versions of reality to emerge. Narrative forms can become tools for understanding and revealing the truth of these societies in relation to architecture and the environment. Through narrative I will explore the unique connection of the interior design of a house in Kampos connected with daily life, culture and environment. These interior spaces still retain a quality of life closely connected with nature, architecture, the private and public realm, all by exhibiting features that can be found in a contemporary way of living.
THE URBAN TRANSCRIPTS JOURNAL, VOLUME 3, NO. 3 AUTUMN 2020, 2020
This article focuses on a small community in the village of Kampos, on the Greek island of Tinos ... more This article focuses on a small community in the village of Kampos, on the Greek island of Tinos in Greece. In studying the history of the island of Tinos and its villages, it becomes evident that the relationship of the villagers to the land and the landscape is vital for an understanding of the architecture and of daily life. Hierarchy and the allocation of land plays an important role. What is life like for the inhabitants of a farming landscape? This cannot be answered only through architectural drawings, or by studying descriptions of the village's architecture nor by analyzing anthropological references. Through narratives that bring out the reality of the village, one becomes aware of the value of metaphor as the natural language of a communal life that is inextricably connected to the natural, built environment, which in turn is connected to ownership and a different perception of the value of land. Different and more grounded versions of reality emerge through metaphor, narrative and fiction. They equip architects with a way of interpreting local tradition as a contemporary way of living and innovating, instead of responding to architecture and dwelling through form and fashion. In other words, they force architects to tap more into the social and ethical function of architecture, to engage in "meaningful regionalism" in Perez Gomez's terms, related to humans and the environment. The methodology of narrative, metaphor and fiction developed in this paper focuses on an aspect of the crisis facing architecture today: In the search for a highly technological, sustainable function of architecture, what is built remains disconnected from humanity and environmental reality. In the methodology proposed, place can be perceived and understood through various versions of reality. This allows the role of the architecture behind a built work to be interpreted as incorporating the wider complexity of life. By adopting fiction and narrative through the use of phenomenology and hermeneutics, the intention was to introduce another architectural dialogue, based on language, words and narrative, as what Perez-Gomez calls a "space of experience".
AMPS CONFERENCE 17.1 Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World. Stevens Institute of Technology, AMPS, PARADE, Architecture_MPS. 17—19 June, 2019 Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World., 2020
Architecture is faced with a crisis today: it concerns the loss of novelty and the search for a h... more Architecture is faced with a crisis today: it concerns the loss of novelty and the search for a highly technological, sustainable function, though disconnected with humanity and environmental reality. Can young architects still conceive of and create spaces communicating the complexity and novelty of life? How could architecture be taught and perceived before the built work? I aim to explore how architectural education could respond to the development of a perception of what life is, within the spatial and social complexity of architecture. For this purpose, I would like to use the case study of a small village of the Cyclades; my argument is that studying big architectural drawings and maps, reading architectural descriptions of village landscapes or city areas, or applying sociological and anthropological principles to places is not enough. Only in these ways, students/young architects cannot acquire a profound understanding of what place is or how life evolves in it. Through narratives connected either with the reality of the village landscape or urban reality, I realized the value of metaphor as a natural language sharing a communal way of living connected with the natural and built environment. Consequently, metaphor, narrative and fiction are presented as tools. They offer students/young architects a broader and deeper understanding of what the world they will design for really is, and alleviate them from the preoccupation of what this world should be, as required by contemporary social and political commandments. They equip architects with a way to interpret the local tradition or urban structure into a contemporary way of living and innovation, without responding to architecture and dwelling through form and fashion – instead, they force them to tap more into the social and ethical function of architecture, a “meaningful regionalism” related with humans and the environment.
Interiority, Volume 3, Number 1, 2020
This article is created out of the architectural space and narratives of village life. The narrat... more This article is created out of the architectural space and narratives of village life. The narratives concern the interiority of life in Kampos, a farming village on the Greek Cycladic island of Tinos, on the day when the village celebrates the Holy Trinity, its patron saint. The village area on this festive day is depicted in the movement of the families from their houses to the church, the procession from the patron saint's church to a smaller church through the main village street, and, nally, in the movement of the villagers back to specic houses. Through a series of spatial and social layers, the meaning of the communal table on the day of the festival, where food is shared, is reached. A series of negotiations create a dierent space, where the public, private and communal blend and reveal dierent layers of "interiority" through which this community is bounded and connected. In this article, I follow the revelation and discovery of truth through ction, story or myth, as argued by the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur.
Betonart, Concrete, architecture and design, 2019
Christos Papoulias’ architecture:
Three architectural projects, three different ways connecting w... more Christos Papoulias’ architecture:
Three architectural projects, three different ways connecting with earth.
Maria Vidali | The article focuses on 3 projects of Christos Papoulias. In these three architectural projects, Papoulias creates houses that are connected in three different ways to the earth. Clearly, for Papoulias both architectural language and dwelling have an ethical function connected with landscape and the world. His work makes it obvious that we cannot understand and interpret the language of architecture in the laboratory and that architectural language must grow out of the connection between praxis/design and theory. Papoulias’ projects manifest a deep understanding and interpretation of both history and the modern world connected to the human need for communication through living space.
Issue 25, Duplicity
Article in Scroope, Cambridge Architecture Journal
Issue 25, Duplicity
At the area of Polemou Kampos, land was mainly public and belonged mostly to Isternia and Kalloni... more At the area of Polemou Kampos, land was mainly public and belonged mostly to Isternia and Kalloni communities. There, a man has been constantly buying land; he may be actually a businessman who wants to sell this land to a corporation, presenting himself as an 'ecologist'. This man is in fact searching for very old contracts when things were not very clear. But, problems of access have started to arise in the area; villagers usually took shortcuts, jumping over the low boundary stone walls of each property to reach their own properties when there was no direct path. Where pathways existed in the past, representing a communal gesture of goodwill on the part of the villagers that had no objection to this kind of communal use, there this man is now putting fences. Purchasing a large part of the land, fencing it and creating enclosures, this man has been blocking villagers' access and has broken the continuity of the network connecting village land with other villages' property. A very new, uncommon situation has started to arise for the villagers of the area, something that alters what existed there before." 1
This research examines the farming landscape of the island of Tinos. Since the 14th century, trav... more This research examines the farming landscape of the island of Tinos. Since the 14th century, travellers have often referred to it as the best cultivated of Cycladic islands, rich in silk-production and the making of silk stockings which once employed mainly women and became a major exportable product of the island.'' The crops are probably more cultivated here rather than in the rest of the island. While the ground is rocky, crops are almost everywhere in the area. Nevertheless, it has the advantage of a significant amount of freshwater that is irrigated from everywhere and contributes to the fertility of barley and other grains; legumes are collected in great abundance.'' Today the Tinos’ landscape is a composition of blurred boundaries among natural and man-made features. In order to allow the steep and dry land to be cultivated the hills and mountain areas were covered with terraces. Some of these are ancient, but most were created under Venetian rule, and extended from the 18th century when it fell under Ottoman occupation. Heavily populated during these later years the island needed to be intensely cultivated in order to cover the daily needs for food, something that forced the further extension of the terraces network. Of equal importance on TInos is its strong connection with religion since antiquity. Over the centuries the interweaving of religion with the land’s cultivation became the key elements of daily life around which communal identity was, and remains constituted.
This paper focuses on the farming landscape of the village of Kampos today, at a time when farming no longer holds the same key role in the island’s commercial and cultural life as in the past. As one of the oldest villages of the island it belongs to the region of the Middle Lands, which consists of villages with rural economies and mostly catholic religion. In the village there is no focal public space, such as a central square. Other communal places, such as the village wash rooms (laundries) and the old stone ovens were used by the villagers through their everyday life. Other vital public spaces are formed by the streets of the village. Of particular note is one street whose turn is gradually widened to create an open space called ''choreftra''. Here is where dances were organised on special festive occasions and where people still pause at the local cafe.
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In a landscape that appears as semi-artificial, the boundaries on land and on water use became an essential element for the villagers. This research explores the presence and the negotiation of these boundaries as they lead to the understanding of ownership and bonding within the village culture. This is explored thought using nine different narratives that are based on archival work and field research. The fluidity of most of
these spatial boundaries reveals the existence of ethical and emotional boundaries. This study of boundaries that define ownership in daily practice leads, through formal and informal narratives, to seeing boundaries that create contact zones and ethical spaces.
Το αντικείμενο της μελέτης μου προσδιορίζεται από το αγροτικό τοπίο της Τήνου, την καθημερινή πρα... more Το αντικείμενο της μελέτης μου προσδιορίζεται από το αγροτικό τοπίο της Τήνου, την καθημερινή πρακτική των ανθρώπων, τους τρόπους που οικειοποιούνται το τοπίο, καθώς και τον τρόπο που οι ιδιοκτησιακές σχέσεις τους με τη γη και το νερό, επαναπροσδιορίζουν το τοπίο αυτό.
H σημασία της φιλοσοφίας στην αρχιτεκτονική εκπαίδευση. Ίδρυμα Παναγιώτη και Έφης Μιχελή, Αθήνα 2... more H σημασία της φιλοσοφίας στην αρχιτεκτονική εκπαίδευση. Ίδρυμα Παναγιώτη και Έφης Μιχελή, Αθήνα 2012 Πρακτικά συνεδρίου, Πάτρα 9-11 Οκτωβρίου 2009 Τμήμα Αρχιτεκτόνων Μηχανικών, Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών Θεωρία και πράξη Ο ρόλος της φιλοσοφίας στην κατανόηση και ερμηνεία της αρχιτεκτονικής γλώσσας Εισαγωγή Μια «κοινωνία» που δεν ξέρει τι γυρεύει, αφού δεν μιλά πια μια κοινή γλώσσα, αλλά πολλές, και που ο καθένας τραυλίζει μια δική του διάλεκτο (που δεν είναι καν «γλώσσα») για να μην την καταλαβαίνει άλλος. Όπως γίνεται και με την αρχιτεκτονική σήμερα, λίγο-πολύ σε όλους τους τόπους, όπου ο καθένας έχει μια δική του αρχιτεκτονική, που δεν την αναγνωρίζει ο άλλος.
Conference Presentations by Maria Vidali
EDITORS:Graham Cairns, Eric An AMPS PROCEEDINGS SERIES 18.1 ISSN 2398-9467, 2020
The analysis and objectives of "Understanding and Imagination before Designing”, a course that I ... more The analysis and objectives of "Understanding and Imagination before Designing”, a course that I recently taught, was a way for me to implement in design Gadamer’s claim that “in language and only in it, can we meet what we never ‘encounter’ in the world, because we are ourselves and merely what we mean and what we know from ourselves.” This knowledge from ourselves also involves emotions, which represents another way in which we should connect with space and environment. More specifically, based both on the traditional architecture of a village of a Greek island and the structure of the city, the course analyses life in each place. This happens primarily through the creation of files and through the understanding a new ar- chitect needs before imagining and creating a new piece of architecture in a village’s tradi- tional structure or a city’s contemporary environment. What should an architect know beyond the structure of a building in order to analyse and understand an existing spatial and social situation in depth? In architectural theory, tools of interpretation are given through different approaches, so that architecture can be understood as a set of practices traditionally used to connect people with their community, place, religion, and environment but primarily with themselves. The course invited students to understand this relationship between traditional or contemporary life and the complexity of architecture, place and environment. This was achieved and revealed through their own fictional narratives as a synthesis of their historical, social, ethical, spatial and urban perception of a place they had never been to before. Reality emerged through a fictional/imaginary plot which helped them anchor their experience. They became part of the chain that is inherently connected with emotions, ethics and solidarity.
This research paper examines the complexity and structure of a farming landscape through spatial... more This research paper examines the complexity and structure of a farming landscape through spatial and social boundaries as extended from the surrounding landscape to the village core. As late back as the 14th century, travellers have often referred to Tinos as the best farmed island of the Cyclades. Today, Tinos’ landscape is a composition of blurred boundaries between natural and man-made features. To allow farming the steep and dry land, hills and mountainous areas had to be landscaped using terraces. Some of these terraces are ancient, but most were created under Venetian rule and expanded after the 18th century when the island fell under Ottoman rule. Heavily populated at that time, the island needed to be intensely farmed in order to cover the daily needs for food, which caused the further expansion of the network of terraces.
Land, water and “air” ownership have been studied through the lens of boundaries in relation to people’s daily connection and food, since annual festivities and religious festivals in the village are always connected with food. This paper focuses on the village of Kampos today, at a time when farming no longer holds the same key role in the island’s commercial and cultural life as in the past. Kampos is one of the oldest villages of the island and is a catholic village with rural economy. The village since 12 years ago had no central public space, such as a village square. Villagers used other communal areas in their everyday lives, such as the laundry rooms and the old stone ovens. A vital public space was the streets of the village themselves. However nowadays the new square at the centre of the village is referred as a communal space for the use and benefit of the village community.
This ongoing research explores the presence and the negotiation of these boundaries as they lead to understanding ownership and bonding within village culture. How these boundaries are extended into the villager’s social life, how these boundaries disappear or intermingle through the communal meals and the ritual of food. The fluidity of most of the spatial boundaries reveals the existence of social, ethical and emotional limits. The conclusions are tentative as the research is ongoing. However this study of boundaries, which determine ownership in daily practice, leads to seeing boundaries as creating contact zones and spaces of ethics.
The land use and ownership, since the 14th century, when we have the first written proof of land ownership on the island. Since that time, hierarchy and land distribution played a key role in the feudal system prevailing under Venetian rule (1390 - 1715). On Tinos, feudalism was implemented in a different way than in any other area or island, or the rest of Greece and similar countries of the Byzantium. Some of the public land belonged to the feudal lords, who awarded powers at the request of the parties concerned.This established a different reading of the landscape and the land’s production. Land fields were described by the seeds and products they were producing. Contracts, legata ( a type of covenant related to the church) and testaments reveal an understanding of the value of the land, at the time they were compiled.
Certainly, different types of boundaries can create different understandings of the ownership or claim of ownership. Land inherited and land acquired by work creates different types of ownership and bonding. The fact that the stone walls of each property do not necessarily point to a fixed boundary allows the creation of a contact zone, an intermediate space of communication, a space of conflict and agreement. The owners need to conclude an agreement. True stories as narrated by Kampos’ villagers talk about how conflicts and agreements on disputed and indefinable boundaries or village common land create a different type of bonding/ownership for the villagers not only with their land, but also with the area of their village.
On the other hand water unravels a different situation, since in Kampos there is private, communal and public water; water as a boundary creates a different situation each time. Water first appears as a communal good in the village, a place where nowadays women wash their carpets or heavy fabrics at the laundry rooms [plystres] of the village. The laundry halls of Kampos are located at the outskirts of village, next to the gardens and fields.
The common understanding of water as property in the village, but also as “a common good”, not measured as matter but as time -in the contracts and covenants-, but also the creation of conflicts and agreements create another discourse regarding ownership. This discourse involves conflicts and agreements based on the prolonged used of the flow of water, beyond the time limits set by each owner’s contract.
Another element “air” as the right to use, unfolds a big dispute in the village for more than a year. The new village square which had been donated to the village association and was constructed with the voluntary work of the villagers. The recent claim of a local businessman to buy the "air value” or the “right to use the air” of the new square, open a coffee shop and put tables and chairs on the square raised a big controversy among villagers. A large portion of the villagers claimed that the square, as a public space, had been created by them and it belonged to the village, as they said. The square might be empty during the day, but on feasts everyone could be there. Who would be the actual owner of the “air” of the new open square? The day of the Honey festival when different delicacies of local honey are made by the women of the village for the evening feast, the air smells honey, a communal smell that escapes through the open windows of village houses. On that summer day, the women of the village work together in the kitchen of the communal hall [leschi] of the village, they clean the village together and they bake and decorate their last honey sweets together. Everything must be ready to welcome the visitors on the night of the feast. That night too, just like every year, the village air vibrated with the smell of honey and the sounds of music, folk dancing, clapping and laughing.
The communal space under the concept of the honey festival dissolves the spatial and social boundaries of the square or boundaries become permeable as the day of the “St. Trinity/Agia Triada” religious festival when boundaries of private, semi private, communal and public life intermingle.
This is the day when some of the women of the village “opens up” the doors of their house to welcome the village’s community and other guests who have come to join the village celebration, to share a festive meal at their family house.
A few days before the feast of the patron Saint of the village, St. Trinity/Agia Triada, village streets are cleaned and painted with white lime; so are the exterior walls of the church. On the day of the festival, the church and the streets are decorated with flowers. The mass involves a procession of priests, villagers and visitors, passing by the broadest, but still small streets of the village. After the end of the procession and the mass, selected houses of the village (whose owners wanted to offer festive meals) are ready to welcome their friends, relatives, neighbours, fellow villagers, villagers from other communities, as well as strangers who visit the village on that day. Both guests and hosts know that guests have to visit all the “open houses” of the village, sit on every house’s table and savour their festive meals. The priest of the village will make his turn on each and every one of the “open houses” to bless the meal. This meal involves a particular menu and particular food decorations. Boundaries of privacy dissolve and communal and religious bonds are revealed to express the identity of the village through the celebrations for its patron saint and the participation and sharing of a communal meal.
The methodology for this paper was archival, research work on the history and anthropology of Tinos, complemented by observation and a series of interviews. The conclusions are tentative since this is an ongoing PhD research work. However our observation and findings define the village structure as this emerges as a living organism formed through the daily discourse about the existence or lack of boundaries, seen through the lens of property and ownership, but also in the sense of bonding and living together. This finding indicates the lack of clear boundaries, which creates an in-between space of communication, as well as claims and agreements among farmers. These observations tend to support the claim that there is a space “in-between”, which often appears where the lack of a physical boundary is replaced by social, ethical or even emotional boundaries. Food celebration and communal meals dissolve boundaries and create a space of identity and bonding for the village community.
It appears that ownership in the sense of place is deeply rooted and connected with very essential, cultural elements of our daily life. Furthermore, Fustel De Coulanges claims that: “There are three things which from the most ancient times, we find founded and solidly established in these Greeks and Italian societies: the domestic religion; the family and the right of property - three things which had in the beginning a manifest relation, and which appear to have been inseparable.”Never the less the property of land and water connotes the property of products and food and the property of “air” as right to use connotes the need for a communal place where food becomes a different contact zone. Focusing on the meaning of boundaries as contact zones, the complexity of village life is revealed through the daily discourse on land, water and air, but also through the continuity of annual festivities when disagreements and discourses dissolve under the communal meals and the celebration of honey.
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Videos by Maria Vidali
revision for publication in Amps, 18th-20th of January 2020.
The article which followed is under the process of publication.
"The aim of this paper is to reveal the importance of a deeper understanding of space and place prior to the design process. It also aims to reveal the importance of the role of the architect, irrespectively of drawings and modelling tables, but mostly connected to the world of text and language."
Published article which followed: "Narrative, Metaphor, Fiction: How Might They Serve Architectural Education", In: Ellyn Lester (ed.), AMPS Proceedings Series 17.1. Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World. Stevens Institute of Technology, USA. 17 – 19 June (2019). pp.63-68. Editor. Ellyn Lester. ISSN 2398-9467
"Architecture is faced with a crisis today: it concerns the loss of novelty and the search for a highly technological, sustain- able function, though disconnected with humanity and environmental reality. Can young architects still conceive of and create spaces communicating the complexity and novelty of life?How could architecture be taught and perceived before the built work?"
Papers by Maria Vidali
Introduction
This article explores the farming landscape and village life in Kampos, a village on the Greek island of Tinos. Tinos is an Aegean island with a long histo- ry of agriculture. In Kampos, one of the oldest farming villages of Tinos, bound- aries created by low stone walls and alleyways primarily define the farming landscape that permeates village life and its structure. The landscape appears semi-artificial, through the construction of countless boundaries, rows of cultiva- tion ridges and terraces. This article is about boundaries revealed through space, texts, movement and habit, Boundaries which represent areas -or rather situa- tions- enabling different co-existing levels of interaction that are ambiguous and can be transformed through negotiation. Negotiation is not possible without lan- guage and narrative. Language consists of communal metaphors, stories and fic- tional beliefs that bind and connect a small community together in a farming landscape where the quality of life remains closely connected to nature, architec- ture, and the interplay between private and public realm.
The presence, absence, and negotiation of boundaries in the village, as well as the life that flourishes between them and their relationship to men, women and ownership, unfold through fictional and scholarly narratives drawn from interviews with the villagers from Kampos. Through these narratives, we see how a different situation of ownership and bonding arises when boundaries in space are obscure or create a liminal in-between space of negotiation and com- munication.
Village society in Kampos is consisted primarily of family units. Some of the members of the family work in the family fields caring for the family wealth, economy and social status, while at the same time they constitute the village community, which acts also as a bigger family body.
Narrative and stories bind and connect small communities together, while narratives can allow different versions of reality to emerge. Narrative forms can become tools for understanding and revealing the truth of these societies in relation to architecture and the environment. Through narrative I will explore the unique connection of the interior design of a house in Kampos connected with daily life, culture and environment. These interior spaces still retain a quality of life closely connected with nature, architecture, the private and public realm, all by exhibiting features that can be found in a contemporary way of living.
Three architectural projects, three different ways connecting with earth.
Maria Vidali | The article focuses on 3 projects of Christos Papoulias. In these three architectural projects, Papoulias creates houses that are connected in three different ways to the earth. Clearly, for Papoulias both architectural language and dwelling have an ethical function connected with landscape and the world. His work makes it obvious that we cannot understand and interpret the language of architecture in the laboratory and that architectural language must grow out of the connection between praxis/design and theory. Papoulias’ projects manifest a deep understanding and interpretation of both history and the modern world connected to the human need for communication through living space.
This paper focuses on the farming landscape of the village of Kampos today, at a time when farming no longer holds the same key role in the island’s commercial and cultural life as in the past. As one of the oldest villages of the island it belongs to the region of the Middle Lands, which consists of villages with rural economies and mostly catholic religion. In the village there is no focal public space, such as a central square. Other communal places, such as the village wash rooms (laundries) and the old stone ovens were used by the villagers through their everyday life. Other vital public spaces are formed by the streets of the village. Of particular note is one street whose turn is gradually widened to create an open space called ''choreftra''. Here is where dances were organised on special festive occasions and where people still pause at the local cafe.
.
In a landscape that appears as semi-artificial, the boundaries on land and on water use became an essential element for the villagers. This research explores the presence and the negotiation of these boundaries as they lead to the understanding of ownership and bonding within the village culture. This is explored thought using nine different narratives that are based on archival work and field research. The fluidity of most of
these spatial boundaries reveals the existence of ethical and emotional boundaries. This study of boundaries that define ownership in daily practice leads, through formal and informal narratives, to seeing boundaries that create contact zones and ethical spaces.
Conference Presentations by Maria Vidali
Land, water and “air” ownership have been studied through the lens of boundaries in relation to people’s daily connection and food, since annual festivities and religious festivals in the village are always connected with food. This paper focuses on the village of Kampos today, at a time when farming no longer holds the same key role in the island’s commercial and cultural life as in the past. Kampos is one of the oldest villages of the island and is a catholic village with rural economy. The village since 12 years ago had no central public space, such as a village square. Villagers used other communal areas in their everyday lives, such as the laundry rooms and the old stone ovens. A vital public space was the streets of the village themselves. However nowadays the new square at the centre of the village is referred as a communal space for the use and benefit of the village community.
This ongoing research explores the presence and the negotiation of these boundaries as they lead to understanding ownership and bonding within village culture. How these boundaries are extended into the villager’s social life, how these boundaries disappear or intermingle through the communal meals and the ritual of food. The fluidity of most of the spatial boundaries reveals the existence of social, ethical and emotional limits. The conclusions are tentative as the research is ongoing. However this study of boundaries, which determine ownership in daily practice, leads to seeing boundaries as creating contact zones and spaces of ethics.
The land use and ownership, since the 14th century, when we have the first written proof of land ownership on the island. Since that time, hierarchy and land distribution played a key role in the feudal system prevailing under Venetian rule (1390 - 1715). On Tinos, feudalism was implemented in a different way than in any other area or island, or the rest of Greece and similar countries of the Byzantium. Some of the public land belonged to the feudal lords, who awarded powers at the request of the parties concerned.This established a different reading of the landscape and the land’s production. Land fields were described by the seeds and products they were producing. Contracts, legata ( a type of covenant related to the church) and testaments reveal an understanding of the value of the land, at the time they were compiled.
Certainly, different types of boundaries can create different understandings of the ownership or claim of ownership. Land inherited and land acquired by work creates different types of ownership and bonding. The fact that the stone walls of each property do not necessarily point to a fixed boundary allows the creation of a contact zone, an intermediate space of communication, a space of conflict and agreement. The owners need to conclude an agreement. True stories as narrated by Kampos’ villagers talk about how conflicts and agreements on disputed and indefinable boundaries or village common land create a different type of bonding/ownership for the villagers not only with their land, but also with the area of their village.
On the other hand water unravels a different situation, since in Kampos there is private, communal and public water; water as a boundary creates a different situation each time. Water first appears as a communal good in the village, a place where nowadays women wash their carpets or heavy fabrics at the laundry rooms [plystres] of the village. The laundry halls of Kampos are located at the outskirts of village, next to the gardens and fields.
The common understanding of water as property in the village, but also as “a common good”, not measured as matter but as time -in the contracts and covenants-, but also the creation of conflicts and agreements create another discourse regarding ownership. This discourse involves conflicts and agreements based on the prolonged used of the flow of water, beyond the time limits set by each owner’s contract.
Another element “air” as the right to use, unfolds a big dispute in the village for more than a year. The new village square which had been donated to the village association and was constructed with the voluntary work of the villagers. The recent claim of a local businessman to buy the "air value” or the “right to use the air” of the new square, open a coffee shop and put tables and chairs on the square raised a big controversy among villagers. A large portion of the villagers claimed that the square, as a public space, had been created by them and it belonged to the village, as they said. The square might be empty during the day, but on feasts everyone could be there. Who would be the actual owner of the “air” of the new open square? The day of the Honey festival when different delicacies of local honey are made by the women of the village for the evening feast, the air smells honey, a communal smell that escapes through the open windows of village houses. On that summer day, the women of the village work together in the kitchen of the communal hall [leschi] of the village, they clean the village together and they bake and decorate their last honey sweets together. Everything must be ready to welcome the visitors on the night of the feast. That night too, just like every year, the village air vibrated with the smell of honey and the sounds of music, folk dancing, clapping and laughing.
The communal space under the concept of the honey festival dissolves the spatial and social boundaries of the square or boundaries become permeable as the day of the “St. Trinity/Agia Triada” religious festival when boundaries of private, semi private, communal and public life intermingle.
This is the day when some of the women of the village “opens up” the doors of their house to welcome the village’s community and other guests who have come to join the village celebration, to share a festive meal at their family house.
A few days before the feast of the patron Saint of the village, St. Trinity/Agia Triada, village streets are cleaned and painted with white lime; so are the exterior walls of the church. On the day of the festival, the church and the streets are decorated with flowers. The mass involves a procession of priests, villagers and visitors, passing by the broadest, but still small streets of the village. After the end of the procession and the mass, selected houses of the village (whose owners wanted to offer festive meals) are ready to welcome their friends, relatives, neighbours, fellow villagers, villagers from other communities, as well as strangers who visit the village on that day. Both guests and hosts know that guests have to visit all the “open houses” of the village, sit on every house’s table and savour their festive meals. The priest of the village will make his turn on each and every one of the “open houses” to bless the meal. This meal involves a particular menu and particular food decorations. Boundaries of privacy dissolve and communal and religious bonds are revealed to express the identity of the village through the celebrations for its patron saint and the participation and sharing of a communal meal.
The methodology for this paper was archival, research work on the history and anthropology of Tinos, complemented by observation and a series of interviews. The conclusions are tentative since this is an ongoing PhD research work. However our observation and findings define the village structure as this emerges as a living organism formed through the daily discourse about the existence or lack of boundaries, seen through the lens of property and ownership, but also in the sense of bonding and living together. This finding indicates the lack of clear boundaries, which creates an in-between space of communication, as well as claims and agreements among farmers. These observations tend to support the claim that there is a space “in-between”, which often appears where the lack of a physical boundary is replaced by social, ethical or even emotional boundaries. Food celebration and communal meals dissolve boundaries and create a space of identity and bonding for the village community.
It appears that ownership in the sense of place is deeply rooted and connected with very essential, cultural elements of our daily life. Furthermore, Fustel De Coulanges claims that: “There are three things which from the most ancient times, we find founded and solidly established in these Greeks and Italian societies: the domestic religion; the family and the right of property - three things which had in the beginning a manifest relation, and which appear to have been inseparable.”Never the less the property of land and water connotes the property of products and food and the property of “air” as right to use connotes the need for a communal place where food becomes a different contact zone. Focusing on the meaning of boundaries as contact zones, the complexity of village life is revealed through the daily discourse on land, water and air, but also through the continuity of annual festivities when disagreements and discourses dissolve under the communal meals and the celebration of honey.
revision for publication in Amps, 18th-20th of January 2020.
The article which followed is under the process of publication.
"The aim of this paper is to reveal the importance of a deeper understanding of space and place prior to the design process. It also aims to reveal the importance of the role of the architect, irrespectively of drawings and modelling tables, but mostly connected to the world of text and language."
Published article which followed: "Narrative, Metaphor, Fiction: How Might They Serve Architectural Education", In: Ellyn Lester (ed.), AMPS Proceedings Series 17.1. Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World. Stevens Institute of Technology, USA. 17 – 19 June (2019). pp.63-68. Editor. Ellyn Lester. ISSN 2398-9467
"Architecture is faced with a crisis today: it concerns the loss of novelty and the search for a highly technological, sustain- able function, though disconnected with humanity and environmental reality. Can young architects still conceive of and create spaces communicating the complexity and novelty of life?How could architecture be taught and perceived before the built work?"
Introduction
This article explores the farming landscape and village life in Kampos, a village on the Greek island of Tinos. Tinos is an Aegean island with a long histo- ry of agriculture. In Kampos, one of the oldest farming villages of Tinos, bound- aries created by low stone walls and alleyways primarily define the farming landscape that permeates village life and its structure. The landscape appears semi-artificial, through the construction of countless boundaries, rows of cultiva- tion ridges and terraces. This article is about boundaries revealed through space, texts, movement and habit, Boundaries which represent areas -or rather situa- tions- enabling different co-existing levels of interaction that are ambiguous and can be transformed through negotiation. Negotiation is not possible without lan- guage and narrative. Language consists of communal metaphors, stories and fic- tional beliefs that bind and connect a small community together in a farming landscape where the quality of life remains closely connected to nature, architec- ture, and the interplay between private and public realm.
The presence, absence, and negotiation of boundaries in the village, as well as the life that flourishes between them and their relationship to men, women and ownership, unfold through fictional and scholarly narratives drawn from interviews with the villagers from Kampos. Through these narratives, we see how a different situation of ownership and bonding arises when boundaries in space are obscure or create a liminal in-between space of negotiation and com- munication.
Village society in Kampos is consisted primarily of family units. Some of the members of the family work in the family fields caring for the family wealth, economy and social status, while at the same time they constitute the village community, which acts also as a bigger family body.
Narrative and stories bind and connect small communities together, while narratives can allow different versions of reality to emerge. Narrative forms can become tools for understanding and revealing the truth of these societies in relation to architecture and the environment. Through narrative I will explore the unique connection of the interior design of a house in Kampos connected with daily life, culture and environment. These interior spaces still retain a quality of life closely connected with nature, architecture, the private and public realm, all by exhibiting features that can be found in a contemporary way of living.
Three architectural projects, three different ways connecting with earth.
Maria Vidali | The article focuses on 3 projects of Christos Papoulias. In these three architectural projects, Papoulias creates houses that are connected in three different ways to the earth. Clearly, for Papoulias both architectural language and dwelling have an ethical function connected with landscape and the world. His work makes it obvious that we cannot understand and interpret the language of architecture in the laboratory and that architectural language must grow out of the connection between praxis/design and theory. Papoulias’ projects manifest a deep understanding and interpretation of both history and the modern world connected to the human need for communication through living space.
This paper focuses on the farming landscape of the village of Kampos today, at a time when farming no longer holds the same key role in the island’s commercial and cultural life as in the past. As one of the oldest villages of the island it belongs to the region of the Middle Lands, which consists of villages with rural economies and mostly catholic religion. In the village there is no focal public space, such as a central square. Other communal places, such as the village wash rooms (laundries) and the old stone ovens were used by the villagers through their everyday life. Other vital public spaces are formed by the streets of the village. Of particular note is one street whose turn is gradually widened to create an open space called ''choreftra''. Here is where dances were organised on special festive occasions and where people still pause at the local cafe.
.
In a landscape that appears as semi-artificial, the boundaries on land and on water use became an essential element for the villagers. This research explores the presence and the negotiation of these boundaries as they lead to the understanding of ownership and bonding within the village culture. This is explored thought using nine different narratives that are based on archival work and field research. The fluidity of most of
these spatial boundaries reveals the existence of ethical and emotional boundaries. This study of boundaries that define ownership in daily practice leads, through formal and informal narratives, to seeing boundaries that create contact zones and ethical spaces.
Land, water and “air” ownership have been studied through the lens of boundaries in relation to people’s daily connection and food, since annual festivities and religious festivals in the village are always connected with food. This paper focuses on the village of Kampos today, at a time when farming no longer holds the same key role in the island’s commercial and cultural life as in the past. Kampos is one of the oldest villages of the island and is a catholic village with rural economy. The village since 12 years ago had no central public space, such as a village square. Villagers used other communal areas in their everyday lives, such as the laundry rooms and the old stone ovens. A vital public space was the streets of the village themselves. However nowadays the new square at the centre of the village is referred as a communal space for the use and benefit of the village community.
This ongoing research explores the presence and the negotiation of these boundaries as they lead to understanding ownership and bonding within village culture. How these boundaries are extended into the villager’s social life, how these boundaries disappear or intermingle through the communal meals and the ritual of food. The fluidity of most of the spatial boundaries reveals the existence of social, ethical and emotional limits. The conclusions are tentative as the research is ongoing. However this study of boundaries, which determine ownership in daily practice, leads to seeing boundaries as creating contact zones and spaces of ethics.
The land use and ownership, since the 14th century, when we have the first written proof of land ownership on the island. Since that time, hierarchy and land distribution played a key role in the feudal system prevailing under Venetian rule (1390 - 1715). On Tinos, feudalism was implemented in a different way than in any other area or island, or the rest of Greece and similar countries of the Byzantium. Some of the public land belonged to the feudal lords, who awarded powers at the request of the parties concerned.This established a different reading of the landscape and the land’s production. Land fields were described by the seeds and products they were producing. Contracts, legata ( a type of covenant related to the church) and testaments reveal an understanding of the value of the land, at the time they were compiled.
Certainly, different types of boundaries can create different understandings of the ownership or claim of ownership. Land inherited and land acquired by work creates different types of ownership and bonding. The fact that the stone walls of each property do not necessarily point to a fixed boundary allows the creation of a contact zone, an intermediate space of communication, a space of conflict and agreement. The owners need to conclude an agreement. True stories as narrated by Kampos’ villagers talk about how conflicts and agreements on disputed and indefinable boundaries or village common land create a different type of bonding/ownership for the villagers not only with their land, but also with the area of their village.
On the other hand water unravels a different situation, since in Kampos there is private, communal and public water; water as a boundary creates a different situation each time. Water first appears as a communal good in the village, a place where nowadays women wash their carpets or heavy fabrics at the laundry rooms [plystres] of the village. The laundry halls of Kampos are located at the outskirts of village, next to the gardens and fields.
The common understanding of water as property in the village, but also as “a common good”, not measured as matter but as time -in the contracts and covenants-, but also the creation of conflicts and agreements create another discourse regarding ownership. This discourse involves conflicts and agreements based on the prolonged used of the flow of water, beyond the time limits set by each owner’s contract.
Another element “air” as the right to use, unfolds a big dispute in the village for more than a year. The new village square which had been donated to the village association and was constructed with the voluntary work of the villagers. The recent claim of a local businessman to buy the "air value” or the “right to use the air” of the new square, open a coffee shop and put tables and chairs on the square raised a big controversy among villagers. A large portion of the villagers claimed that the square, as a public space, had been created by them and it belonged to the village, as they said. The square might be empty during the day, but on feasts everyone could be there. Who would be the actual owner of the “air” of the new open square? The day of the Honey festival when different delicacies of local honey are made by the women of the village for the evening feast, the air smells honey, a communal smell that escapes through the open windows of village houses. On that summer day, the women of the village work together in the kitchen of the communal hall [leschi] of the village, they clean the village together and they bake and decorate their last honey sweets together. Everything must be ready to welcome the visitors on the night of the feast. That night too, just like every year, the village air vibrated with the smell of honey and the sounds of music, folk dancing, clapping and laughing.
The communal space under the concept of the honey festival dissolves the spatial and social boundaries of the square or boundaries become permeable as the day of the “St. Trinity/Agia Triada” religious festival when boundaries of private, semi private, communal and public life intermingle.
This is the day when some of the women of the village “opens up” the doors of their house to welcome the village’s community and other guests who have come to join the village celebration, to share a festive meal at their family house.
A few days before the feast of the patron Saint of the village, St. Trinity/Agia Triada, village streets are cleaned and painted with white lime; so are the exterior walls of the church. On the day of the festival, the church and the streets are decorated with flowers. The mass involves a procession of priests, villagers and visitors, passing by the broadest, but still small streets of the village. After the end of the procession and the mass, selected houses of the village (whose owners wanted to offer festive meals) are ready to welcome their friends, relatives, neighbours, fellow villagers, villagers from other communities, as well as strangers who visit the village on that day. Both guests and hosts know that guests have to visit all the “open houses” of the village, sit on every house’s table and savour their festive meals. The priest of the village will make his turn on each and every one of the “open houses” to bless the meal. This meal involves a particular menu and particular food decorations. Boundaries of privacy dissolve and communal and religious bonds are revealed to express the identity of the village through the celebrations for its patron saint and the participation and sharing of a communal meal.
The methodology for this paper was archival, research work on the history and anthropology of Tinos, complemented by observation and a series of interviews. The conclusions are tentative since this is an ongoing PhD research work. However our observation and findings define the village structure as this emerges as a living organism formed through the daily discourse about the existence or lack of boundaries, seen through the lens of property and ownership, but also in the sense of bonding and living together. This finding indicates the lack of clear boundaries, which creates an in-between space of communication, as well as claims and agreements among farmers. These observations tend to support the claim that there is a space “in-between”, which often appears where the lack of a physical boundary is replaced by social, ethical or even emotional boundaries. Food celebration and communal meals dissolve boundaries and create a space of identity and bonding for the village community.
It appears that ownership in the sense of place is deeply rooted and connected with very essential, cultural elements of our daily life. Furthermore, Fustel De Coulanges claims that: “There are three things which from the most ancient times, we find founded and solidly established in these Greeks and Italian societies: the domestic religion; the family and the right of property - three things which had in the beginning a manifest relation, and which appear to have been inseparable.”Never the less the property of land and water connotes the property of products and food and the property of “air” as right to use connotes the need for a communal place where food becomes a different contact zone. Focusing on the meaning of boundaries as contact zones, the complexity of village life is revealed through the daily discourse on land, water and air, but also through the continuity of annual festivities when disagreements and discourses dissolve under the communal meals and the celebration of honey.
Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome
Roma Eventi – Piazza della Pilotta, 4 - 00187 Roma - Italia
Το αφήγημα στη μελέτη αυτή χρησιμιποιήθηκε ως ενα εργαλείο έρευνας, όπως αυτό έχει υιοθετηθεί από τη φαινομενολογία και την ερμηνευτική, σε συνεργασία με ανθρωπολογικές και εθνογραφικές μελέτες και ακολούθησε κατόπιν ιστορικής έρευνας, έρευνας αρχείου συμβολαίων, διαθηκών και λεγάτων, συνεντεύξεων, καταγραφής χώρων και προσωπικής εμπειρίας.
Τα συμβόλαια, οι διαθήκες και τα λεγάτα που αφορούν την ιδιοκτησία της γης και του νερού, παράλληλα αφορούν ένα σύνολο κανόνων, αρχών και αξιών. Έτσι αποτελούν μέρος ενός διακριτικού τρόπου με τον οποίο οι κάτοικοι του νησιού αντιλαμβάνονται και ερμηνεύουν την τοπογραφία του χωριού τους/ της περιοχής τους, ως μια πρώιμη, τυπική μορφή τοπικού αφηγήματος. Όπως αναφέρει ο κοινωνιολόγος Crossley, η γλώσσα "μας δίνει μια κατανόηση για τον κόσμο συμπηκνόνωντας και χαρτογραφώντας συγχρόνως”.
Tinos, a Greek island in the north west of the archipelago known as the Cyclades situated in the Aegean Sea, is known especially for the religiosity of its people and its festivals in honour of the Virgin Mary. It is a centre for pilgrimage for the inhabitants of the neighbouring islands, and the Christians who flock to it every year.
Reflecting the religiosity of the local inhabitants are the excessive numbers of chapels, mainly private, which dot the landscape and define the territory of the villages posted as sentinels on the mountains and hill tops of the island both inland and overlooking the island’s extensive coastline.
On the two hundred square kilometres of the island there are approximately seven hundred and fifty chapels. They are located in cultivated fields, next to pathways or on the top of the hills, next to a gorge, or on rocks near the sea. The outlying chapels belong either to the parish church of the village – in which case they are communal property – or, more frequently, to a village family – in which case they are private property. In the case of private chapels a special link is created between the family and the chapel. Moreover the annual festivals and rituals serve to link the chapel to the village parish church and the village households.
Today the outlying chapels reflect both of the religious traditions, Orthodox and Catholic, which coexist on the island. Their location outside the village core and yet linked by the movement of the family and the other inhabitants of the village at the times of the festivals and rituals, reveals the special relationship between the countryside and the village structure.
Popular piety is so important an aspect of these rituals. In this paper I will reveal the role of the outlying chapels in relation to the village structure and farmland, with particular emphasis on the way in which the basic structures of village life, through a popular piety and dutiful devotion to God, have become expressed and thereby created an identity and continuity of tradition which thrives right up to the present day.
2ο Πανελλήνιο Συνέδριο Φιλοσοφίας μεταπτυχιακών φοιτητών και υποψήφιων διδακτόρων.
Αθήνα, 21-23 Οκτωβρίου
Το κείµενο αυτό διερευνά και παρουσιάζει τη σχέση του χώρου και της αρχιτεκτονικής µέσα από τη σηµασία του ορίου και τη σχέση του λόγου και της αρχιτεκτονικής µέσα από την αφηγηµατικότητα και το µυθιστόρηµα. Η προσέγγιση είναι µεθοδολογική και ως θεωρητικό υπόβαθρο και σχολή σκέψης χρησιµοποιείται η ερµηνευτική όπως αυτή διδάσκεται από την φαινοµενολογία. Η παραπάνω προσέγγιση του χώρου και της αρχιτεκτονικής γίνεται αρχικά µέσα από όρια χωρικά ενώ συγχρόνως εντοπίζει όρια ηθικά και συναισθηµατικά, όρια αµετάβλητα αλλά και διαπραγµατεύσιµα, ενώ υπερτερεί το στοιχείο της διαµεσολάβησης. Η µελέτη έχει ως αφετηρία της έναν χώρο πραγµατικό και εξελίσσεται σε έναν χρόνο πραγµατικό, αφού υποστηρίζεται µέσα από αφηγήσεις/συνεντεύξεις που παρουσιάζουν τον δεσµό και τη σηµασία της ιδιοκτησίας. Την ίδια στιγµή η θεωρητική προσέγγιση συνδιαλέγεται σε έναν χρόνο φανταστικό\, αυτόν του µυθιστορήµατος. Το έργο του Paul Ricoeur «Η λειτουργία του φανταστικού στη διαµόρφωση της πραγµατικότητας» αποτέλεσε σηµαντικό στοιχείο στη θεωρία και µεθοδολογία της µελέτης. Όπως ο ίδιος τονίζει, όσο περισσότερο η φαντασία αποκλίνει από αυτό που ονοµάζεται πραγµατικότητα στην καθηµερινή γλώσσα και όραµα, τόσο περισσότερο πλησιάζει την καρδιά της πραγµατικότητας που δεν είναι πλέον ο κόσµος των εύχρηστων αντικειµένων, αλλά ο κόσµος µέσα στον οποίο έχουµε ριχτεί από τη γέννηση µας όπου προσπαθούµε να προσανατολιστούµε προβάλλοντας τις εσώτερες δυνατότητες µας σε αυτήν, προκειµένου να µπορέσουµε να κατοικήσουµε εκεί, µε την κυριολεκτική έννοια της λέξης. Αυτή η µελέτη επιδιώκει να κατανοήσει, να περιγράψει και να επιβεβαιώσει µια βαθύτερη θεωρητική δοµή που υφαίνει και δένει µικρές κοινότητες µαζί, µε βάση το οικοδοµικό αποτύπωµα και µε θεµατικές που συνεχίζουν να επηρεάζουν τον σύγχρονο τρόπο ζωής, όπως η ηθική, ο πολιτισµός και η κοινωνική ζωή. Μέρος της προσέγγισης αυτής υπήρξε η προφορική ιστορία και η συστηµατική καταγραφή συνεντεύξεων και αφηγήσεων. Αυτήν διαδέχεται η δηµιουργία ιστοριών µυθοπλασίας οι οποίες έχουν αφετηρία τις πραγµατικές αφηγήσεις των χωρικών. Η σύνθεση κάθε µυθοπλαστικής αφήγησης προσεγγίζεται ερµηνευτικά µε σκοπό τόσο την αποκάλυψη της αλήθειας µέσα στον κοινοτικό ή ιδιωτικό χώρο του χωριού και την κατανόηση του κεντρικού ρόλου της αρχιτεκτονικής µέσα στη ζωή της κοινότητας.
Στο βιβλίο "Γη και χωριό. Τα εξωκκλήσια της Τήνου" παρουσιάζεται το νησί της Τήνου μέσα από μια ερμηνευτική προσέγγιση τόσο του τοπίου και των αρχιτεκτονημάτων του όσο και της δράσεως των ανθρώπων μέσα σ’ αυτό, και των παραδόσεων που ακολουθούνται.
Στο τοπίο της Τήνου συναντάμε άγρια φύση, χωράφια, κήπους και χωριά. Τα φυσικά όρια μεταξύ χωριών, βουνών και ακτογραμμής δημιουργούν μια αντίθεση μεταξύ φυσικού κόσμου και κατοικημένου χώρου. Τα χωριά εξελίχθηκαν σε κεντρικά σημεία στο τοπίο του νησιού και στη ζωή των κατοίκων του. Οι κάτοικοι του χωριού, σε συνεχή μετακίνηση μεταξύ χωριού και υπαίθρου, είτε καλλιεργώντας τη γη –μετακινούμενοι από το σπίτι στον αγρό, στο αλώνι και στους μύλους – είτε καθαγιάζοντάς την συμμετέχοντας σε θρησκευτικές πομπές, δημιούργησαν ένα χώρο, το χωριό με τα όρια του να προσδιορίζουν την έκταση του σε σχέση με τα υπόλοιπα χωριά και την άγονη γη του νησιού. Ο χώρος αυτός καθοριζόταν από την αλληλεπίδραση μεταξύ κατοικημένου χώρου και φύσης. Το συμπαγές σύνολο των σπιτιών, με τους κήπους και τα αγροκτήματα που τα περιβάλλουν, δημιούργησε μια περιοχή δράσης του ανθρώπου και, παράλληλα, καθιέρωσε ένα διαχωρισμό μεταξύ κοινού και ιδιωτικού, ιερού και εγκόσμιου, φυσικού και τεχνητού.
Παράλληλα σε μικρότερη κλίμακα παρουσιάζεται το σπίτι και η οικογενειακή μονάδα, τα οποία αποτελούν ένα μικρόκοσμο της αλληλεπίδρασης με τη φύση. Ο άνδρας είναι εκείνος που συνδέει το σπίτι με τον εξωτερικό κόσμο, ενώ η γυναίκα μένει στο σπίτι, συμβολίζοντας το σταθερό κέντρο της κίνησης του άνδρα. Η εκκλησία και τα πανηγύρια του χωριού αποτελούν εκδηλώσεις της κοινωνικής ζωής και της συλλογικής μνήμης, δημιουργώντας έτσι μία ταυτότητα για τον τόπο του χωριού, καθώς κι έναν τρόπο επικοινωνίας μεταξύ του ανθρώπινου και του Θείου κόσμου. Η αγροτική ζωή και η παραγωγή τροφής βοηθούν στην κατανόηση της υλικής διάστασης της δομής του χωριού, ενώ η θρησκευτική ζωή, μέσω της Εκκλησίας, της Λειτουργίας και των πανηγυριών, παρέχει μια συμβολική ερμηνεία της ζωής του χωριού.
Κατόπιν το τρίτο κεφάλαιο μελετά τα εξωκκλήσια, τον τρόπο που είναι τοποθετημένα στο φυσικό τοπίο, καθώς και τη σχέση τους με το χωριό και την κοινότητα.
Γενικότερα, τα εξωκκλήσια στεγάζουν την εικόνα ενός Αγίου και συνδέουν την έννοια της παρουσίας του Θεού με την ιδιοκτησία του ανθρώπου, αφού τα περισσότερα από αυτά είναι ιδιωτικά. Αποτελούν, επομένως, μια διαφορετική μορφή επικοινωνίας μεταξύ του ανθρώπου και του Θείου, και δημιουργούν επίσης βαθιές σχέσεις μεταξύ του σπιτικού και του χωριού. Ενδεικτικά, το μικρό ταξίδι της οικογένειας και των χωρικών προς το εξωκκλήσι, δηλαδή η μετάβαση προς αυτό με κάθε ευσέβεια, κατά τη διάρκεια των τοπικών εορταστικών εκδηλώσεων του Πάσχα, δημιουργεί μια τοπογραφία ιεροτελεστίας, μια αλληλεπίδραση μεταξύ του ανθρώπου με την κατοικία του και της περιοχής του χωριού του. Η μετακίνηση των χωρικών στο τοπίο γίνεται μεταξύ δύο κέντρων: ενός διαμορφωμένου από τον ίδιο τον άνθρωπο, εκεί όπου έχει επιβάλει την κυριαρχία του, δηλαδή του χώρου όπου κατοικεί, και ενός άλλου, δημιουργημένου μέσα στη φύση, μέσω της θρησκείας, δηλαδή του εξωκκλησιού και των πανηγυριών που γίνονται σε αυτό.
Τέλος, μέρος των συμπερασμάτων της μελέτης αυτής αποτελεί η συνειδητοποίηση της σπουδαιότητας αυτών των ναών ως συμβόλων αναγέννησης και σωτηρίας, στο ευρύτερο ιστορικό πλαίσιο των συνεχών αλλαγών στο νησί. Τα εξωκκλήσια αντανακλούν μια συνέχεια της παράδοσης στον σύγχρονο κόσμο, παραδίδουν την ιστορία και τον πολιτισμό που εκφράζουν, ενώ παράλληλα τα πανηγύρια και οι τελετές ανανεώνουν αυτή την παράδοση. Επιπλέον, εξακολουθούν να μορφώνουν τη θεμελιώδη για τον άνθρωπο αίσθηση συνέχειας, που δημιουργήθηκε με το πέρασμα από τη ζωή και το θάνατο και την ελπίδα για ανανέωση.