The Walled City of Nicosia Today - The Challenge of Managing Heritage Conservation in a Living Divided City

Nicosia has been the capital of Cyprus for over one thousand years. It reflects the islands rich heritage and concentrates some of the island's finest historic architecture. The 16th century fortifications of Nicosia are an excellent example of the bastion system of fortifications in the eastern Mediterranean of the time. Political events during the last four decades have culminated in the physical partition of Nicosia. A buffer zone, once the most vibrant part of the city, splits the town into two parts that have been developing independently of each other, thus causing a disfunctional urban entity. In 1979, under the auspices of the United Nations Development Program the two communities (Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot) initiated a project for a conservation and planning strategy aiming for a unified urban development. Under this objective a bi-communal team of national and international experts was formed. The Nicosia Master Plan team has since produced a common planning and conservation strategy aiming towards a reunified city. This paper presents the NMP objectives and project examples. Also, an ongoing research project, funded by the Republic of Cyprus and the European Regional Development Fund, is presented which aims at establishing a bioclimatically-based approach in the conservation of traditional buildings in the Walled city of Nicosia.