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Arabahmet District:
Nicosia - North Cyprus |
Arabahmet quarter is one of the few parts of the walled city of Nicosia,
which still to a great extent preserves its historic charm with streets
pattern, buildings typical of
the late Ottoman era and its old urban fabric.
Arabahmet lies at the western edge of the walled city, with easy access
to the commercial centre and to civic and recreational facilities.
However, this beautiful and historic area of great potential has been
rapidly disintegrating into total physical and socio-economic collapse.
This is due to the fact that almost 90 per cent of its inhabitants were
Turkish-Cypriot refugees forced to leave their villages and settle in
the area following the Greek-Cypriot attacks between 1963 and 1974.
(During this period, one-third of the island's total Turkish-Cypriot
population became refugees, was forced to settle in some 32 enclaves
comprising a mere three per cent of the total area of Cyprus, abandoning
103 villages which were destroyed by the Greek-Cypriots.)
After 1974, Arabahmet's resident population declined dramatically, with
some of the refugee families opting to return once more to rural life
following the Turkish Peace Operation. According to a study conducted in
1987, most of the remaining residents were elderly and of low-income
households. Buildings were becoming derelict and decayed and the
residential environment was deteriorating or giving way to workshops and
warehouses.
The Arabahmet Conservation Project was put into practice not only to
preserve the cultural and architectural legacy of the quater but also to
give impetus for private investment, to enhance quality of life in the
district, to attract new residents, strengthen economic activity and
ultimately to integrate the historic quarter into the contemporary city
of Nicosia. For these reasons, a strong residential use was considered a
necessary component of balanced development for the area.
The ultimate goal of the conservation project is to instigate a process
of self- sustained rehabilitation, effectively enabling the historic
area to resume a viable role within the contemporary city. Proposed
works, therefore, involve the restoration of a significant section of
the dilapidated housing stock and other physical structures; the
provision of community facilities and public amenities; the improvement
of the residential environment; the integration of the neighborhood into
the traffic system of the wider area; and the provision of greater
opportunities for employment in Arabahment, enriching the pattern of
land use with functions that complement the predominantly residential
surroundings.
The works aim to increase the population of Arabahment and to attract
younger and economically active households into the area, as well as
encouraging existing residents to remain and, simultaneously,
stimulating owner-occupation by demonstrating specific conservation
techniques which can be repeated both in the Arabahmet area and the
other quarters of Nicosia and elsewhere.
Viability criteria impose capital cost restrictions on the project,
since cost must come within the levels which can be afforded by the
intended beneficiaries, who come from the lower-income strata of the
population.
A concise description of the project's essential two-fold objective
captures the sustainable revitalisation of the community of Arabahmet
and to demonstrate the viability and the worth of using old, traditional
buildings for contemporary needs and for preserving Nicosia's cultural
and architectural heritage as an integral, living part of the
contemporary city.
In its original form, the project foresaw the restoration of 30 houses,
construction of 12 new housing units, creation of two new units out of
one large Ottoman mansion and three new units by extending capacity, and
provision of repair grants to owners.
The ultimate aim is to provide the district with a kindergarten,
community centre, library, museum, folk-art centre, a hotel/restaurant,
nine shops and a car park for about 20 cars. A new road,
pedestrianisation ofa group of streets and landscaping of traffic-free
areas and open spaces are all part of the project.
By the end of 1993, laborious restoration and construction had been
completed on 11 units, enabling nine families to take up residence. By
the end of 1994 the number of completed units had increased to 16. The
work on the remaining units is under way.
This ambitious, yet very important, project is expected to be realised
completely by the turn of the century. |
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