The invisible monuments of walled Nicosia: exploring the gradual disappearance of built heritage after the 1974 war

REHAB 2014, Portugal, 20.03.2014

The paper presented by PhD student Christina Pieri is an exploration of the problematic management of heritage due to the Greek and Turkish Cypriot conflict. This included a discussion of particular examples within walled Nicosia, where reinforced focus in some areas in order for both cultures to expose their cultural, religious and political dominance, has contributed to the invisibility and gradual decay of others. The outcome of this is the ongoing disappearance of significant heritage structures due to the enduring cultural, religious and political power struggles between the two communities. The paper examined the Cypriots' possible fear of commitment to their own inheritance, which results in the gradual invisibility of disintegrated architecture, naively now taken for granted.

REHAB 2014 opening session. Photo: Christina Pieri, 2014