Description

Final version of Kastra: Architecture and Culture in the Aegean Archipelago, published Summer 2018. “Kastra: Architecture and Culture in the Aegean Archipelago,” is a sequel to “The Aegean Crucible: Tracing Vernacular Architecture in Post-Byzantine Centuries,” published in 2004. “The Aegean Crucible” focused on the vernacular architecture of the Aegean archipelago, while “Kastra” focuses on the collective fortification, a building type vital to survival in the region, during the thirteenth-to- eighteenth-century period. “Kastra” was also written on the conviction that what we identify today as the vernacular architecture of the Aegean islands emerged from the building of Kastra, the medieval collective fortifications of the Aegean archipelago. “Kastra” is a book about architecture and culture, written by an architect and addressed to the general public rather than to specialists. Observations and “notes” in the form of color slides taken during repeated visits to the region form the basic skeleton of the book, which is also enriched by the helicopter-based photographs of Nikos Daniilidis. Includes bibliographical references, index and gazeteer. Contents: Doges, Knights, Pashas and Pirates. The Aegean Archipelago. The Vernacular Response: Collective Fortifications. The Formal response: Detached Fortification Walls. The Hybrid Response: Sharing Lessons. Constantine (Dinos) E. Michaelides, FAIA, is emeritus dean and professor of the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. Born in Athens, he received an architecture diploma from the National Technical University in 1952 and earned an M.Arch. from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design in 1957.