Guide of Eastern Macedonia & Thrace

Thasos is a special architectural total. The architecture of its settlements is an especial part of the traditional Macedonian architecture, enriched with local particularities, especially regarding constructive techniques and habits. Its particularity is based on the local natural, social and economic conditions, since Thasos is a fertile island. A particular frame of development with a closed agricultural form was shaped because of the ongoing activities of pirates in the Byzantine period and after. A common characteristic of the organization of all traditional settlements is the architectural choice of the establishment’s location for the best protection and defense. Two are the dominant types of residence: the primal basic wide faced type of the Macedonian house, open with a yard and the posterior closed square type filling the first. There is full separation of the usages: the auxiliary ones are at the ground floor and the housing one at the level. On the ground floor of the square type we often meet professional usages also. The main materials are: stone, pine wood that is aplenty at the island and the schistose plates for covering the buildings. The most important morphological elements are: the bowed entrance, the bowed lintel with marble domes driven in as regards the surface of the external walls, the aslant cutoff at the corners of the buildings, the sachnisia (closed balconies), the external stone built wells on a bow and the decorative chromatic panorama with paints of external walls and cavities. The stone built mansions of the 18th and 19th century have the basic characteristics of the Greek post Byzantine architecture. Interesting buildings belonging in the local architectural type are some particular ones like the pier, the monastery dependences and the building for cultural activities at the port of the capital of the island, Limenas.

Sources: S. N. Stefanou, “Thasos”, Traditional Greek Architecture, v.8, Melisa, Athens, 1991. 79-112. Moutsopoulos. “Greece”, Traditional Balkan Architecture, Melisa, Athens 1996, pp.349-411.