The architecture of the town

A stroll in the streets and alleys of the old town has a dreamlike quality about it, we could as well be on a film set, indeed it brings us a reminder of life in the nineteenth century when ladies in their crinolines and gentlemen in top hats carrying canes would go for a walk, talking in low tones and greeting their acquaintances. The truth is, however, that life here began much earlier and under less romantic conditions.

The old town of Corfu, the "xopoli' (outer town) had its beginnings in the 13th century when the overpopulation of the Fortress and the pressure exercised upon the Orthodox Corfiots by the Angevin conquerors to convert to the Catholic Church, brought the situation to an impasse. Gradually the town was extended on to the hills surrounding the fortress, at a distance such that it could still be defended by the cannons of the citadel in the case of a siege. There are no buildings remaining from this period today. The dreamlike scene of which we spoke dates from the Venetian times and from the period of the British Protectorate (16th to 19th centuries). What you now see, wherever you wander and (most probably) lose yourself, belongs to this period of time.

A few words, however, about these buildings will aid you in understanding the economic and social life of the town during the passage of the centuries. They were built by the middle and working classes to a little-changing pattern, and in essence, are the first forms of apartment buildings.

The Venetian buildings were occupied in times of war and siege, in times of poverty and exploitation by the noble classes. They were built on very small plots of land, making use of the entire surface, without passages, with rudimentary ventilation. There were no courtyards or gardens, no sanitation, but there was a strict angular symmetry, with plain, symmetrical facades. An easily recognisable characteristic is the use of arches, 'volta' as the Corfiots call them, as well as the carefully positioned windows, the strips separating each level, the doorways, the stone balconies, the cornices, the great variety of chimney styles and the iron grilles over the ground floor windows. Colour schemes of the time included red and ochre on the walls in combination with the white surrounds to cypress-wood doors and window-frames. Few of the buildings in the old town have cellars, for as we have said they were built on the rocks of the hills surrounding the Fortress. Thus their storerooms are to be found in the attics which were rarely used as living quarters.

Variations are to be found only in the dwellings of the working classes and in the homes of the rich. To start with, the houses of the lower classes are more numerous. They do not display the style or the fashion of any particular period and are therefore ageless in their simplicity. The houses of the rich people were built according to architectural plans, and were decorated with carved lintels, heavy cornices, carved doorways, and baroque and Renaissance details copied from the mansions of the town.

The buildings of the British period are taller (they reach up to seven stories) with alternate balconies, improved construction, and with a neo-Classical style which came from the West. They were designed by talented Greek architects. There is distinct progress in the layout, they cover a larger area, have better ventilation, and for the first time we encounter the allocation of separate space to washrooms.

(Bibliography: Greek Traditional Architecture - Corfu. Aphrodite Agoropoulou Birbili, 'Melissa' Publications 1982)

Village architecture