Stone Bridge Museum

Students : Aggeliki Baltoyanni
Professor: Dragonas Panos
Dissertation Thesis at the Technical University of Patra, School of Architecture
Presentation Date: June 2010

This diploma thesis proposes a museum for the stone bridges and their builders. The proposed building is located in the Kastanea village of the Mastorochoria region of Epirus. In an altitude of 900m the village is a stone landscape in a fir forest.

In the last century the majority of its inhabitants were stone-builders and worked in local construction as well as in public works around the country. In all the villages of the area there is a long tradition in building stone bridges and in general building with stone in various scales. A museum that collects, analyses, exhibits, and promotes this tradition is a natural development for the area. An undertaking of this kind could invigorate the area in many levels and is an opportunity for its cultural and touristic development.

A prominent feature of the Kastanea village are its three stone bridges that link the mountain slopes where village lies.

Ample water, coming from many springs dispersed in the village, flows in two main streams. The fresh water flows above ground in an extensive network of channels on the sides of the village's cobblestone paths. This network played a paramount role in the daily life of the inhabitants since it watered the gardens laying on terraces on the mountain slopes.

Water networks and stone are the also fundamental characteristics of the proposed building of this thesis.

The site selected for the construction of the new building is on one of the two streams, facing one of the already existing stone bridges of the village, and in close proximity to the central square of the village (Image 4). In this vista a building complex is created that consists of: the museum area, the passage, the main building (that houses multimedia rooms, the library, and the offices), the tower (with the observation deck and access to one of the mountain slopes), and the pavilion an open-air room where one can experience the view of the mountains and the old stone bridge.

Since antiquity in Greece, the traditions of founding a building are connected to sacrifice and offer to the gods. In more recent ages the foundation and completion of a major public work is also accompanied by a sacrifice. This notion is recorded in the folk poem "The Bridge of Arta" ("Της Άρτας το Γιοφύρι"). In this poem the biggest sacrifice is asked from the head builder. In order to make the bridge stand -a bridge which was constructed during the day but collapsed during the night- the head-builder is asked to wall-in (enclose) his wife in the foundations.

The building refers to this dimension of the landscape of myth and tradition. It is a trek for both the water and the visitor. It encloses nature, and water. It is structured based on the notion of enclosure as this appears in the folk poem above. The building itself encloses the landscape but at the same time it is itself enclosed in the landscape. Water streams branch and involve around and on the building. The visitor follows a path from the closed, dark, linear museum space to the passage. To reach the opposite bank the visitor passes through the walls of the passage (bringing to mind the wife enclosed in the bridge foundations), via a series of emotional spaces surrounded by cascading water. At the other end of the passage the visitor enters the main building or chooses the path that leads outside to the pavilion. Thus, the building becomes a bridge -but a bridge that is crossed by water and allows the visitor to encounter the water.