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ARCHITECTURE

Skopelos’ traditional architecture preserved to this day dates back to the second half of the 18th century and mostly to the 19th and 20th century. According to its morphological and structural characteristics it is distinguished into two basic categories-depending mostly on the liberation from the Turks-the popular and the neoclassical architecture.

A. Local Architecture

The differentiation of the architecture between the Northern Sporades and the Southern Aegean Islands is mainly due to the climatic conditions of the area; the colder climate of the North Aegean and its vicinity with Pilion had a strong influence upon it.

A.1. Macedonian Type

They are usually of small extent, because of the narrowness of the available constructive space and therefore are built in vertical axis. On the first level, which was usually semi-basement was the kitchen and the cellars for the storage of the year's products. On the first floor, were the living spaces, dining rooms and bedrooms, while on the last floor, which was usually a unified open space, was the reception room.

A.2. Rural type

Two characteristic elements of this type of houses were: a) the "sofas", a small space on a higher level from the other rooms; this room was used by the element of the family, and b) the "kuradoros" which could be found in older houses, and was a wooden elevated space supported by wooden beams, having always a fire-place for the heating of the room.

B. The Neoclassical Architecture

Houses of this period were two-storey or even three-storey, stone-built and were roofed as the ones of the previous period. They were symmetrically organized both in their ground plan and on the formation of their sides, and richly adorned with drawn decorative elements such as pilasters with antae capitals epistyles (architraves), friezes, eaves etc. The entrance of each house was usually framed by marble door frames whereas above them was always a balcony, which rested on a marble stone-relief "furusia" (wooden-beams) and was protected by forged rails.

Neoclassicism and its various relative movements was maintained on the island till the first decades of the 20th century and was preserved by the contemporary architecture or as it used to be said the "Architecture between the Two Great World Wars".