FACT SHEET
Project: Museum
Client: Government
Year: 2016
Status: Completion
Location: Nicosia
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New Cyprus Museum Competition
New Cyprus Museum Competition
CREDITS
Principal:
Stefanos Anastasiou
Project Architect:
Stefanos Anastasiou
INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITION FOR THE NEW CYPRUS MUSEUM
Concept
Cyprus has been an important cultural core throughout the centuries, a fact established through the archeological artifacts from various historical periods, which are constantly unearthed. Using as a guideline the evolution of the historical periods, through the antiquities, start from the Early Aceramic Neolithic Period and concludes – leads to the Early Christian Period.
The island’s heritage is very rich, as it was enhanced by many cultures that were introduced to the locals throughout history, either by its conquest or by commerce relations.
The project’s goal is to house this heritage, in a way that elevates and promotes it, while making it a part of people’s lives, this would be succeeded via a central point. This could be a landscape plaza outside and simultaneously inside the museum.
The idea behind the museum was to create a project that will be user-friendly both internally and externally. The historical antiquity called “σταυρόσχημο” cruciform,was the basis and the inspiration for the creation of a building through antiquities
This proposal’s intension is the creation of a cultural heritage plateau. The museum will function as a bridge between the urban site of Nicosia and the natural elements of the area, with culture as the center point of the intervention.
Its main purpose is to protect the historical heritage and simultaneously to present it to the world, by returning it to the protective confines of mother earth, where they preserved for centuries and found in modern times. Consequently, a basement museum is created, intended solely to showcase these ancient artifacts. The timeline of the long history of the island, is presenting in street level through a cultural park which connects the multiple layers of the site and the city altogether.