CAPPADOCIAN CIVIL ARCHITECTURE

CAPPADOCIAN CIVIL ARCHITECTURE

Nineteenth century Cappadocia houses, built on hillsides, were either carved our of the rock or built from large cut stones. Soft volcanic stone,the only architectural material in the region, is easily cut and shaped. It hardens on contact with air to form very resilient material. The abundance of stone in the area and ease of its use have created a building technique to Cappadocia.
Wood is used for courtyard gates the house doors. Rosette and ivy patterns are used as decorations above the  arched doors. The areas between floors are decorated with up to three rows of rosettes, fans, stars, palm leaves,weather vanes and stylized plant patterns. Windows are grouped in twos and threes and stylized plant patterns are also used as decorative borders.
Two types of window are used, those that have two panes that open separately or those of a guillotine style.
Both types of houses contain numerous living rooms, a kitchen , cellar, storeroom, an oven (tandır), wine vat, etc. Niches found in the guest rooms are decorated with paintings of vases full of flowers under silken wavy curtains,scenes from nature, or women filling and carrying water vessels. These scenes are painted on plaster.
The most interesting examples of local architecture are fro the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Examples can be found all over the region, but particularly in Ürgüp, Ortahisar, Mustafapaşa, Uçhisar, Göreme, Avanos, Güzelöz, nearby Başköy in the province of Kayseri and Güzelyurt, near the region of Ihlara.
The houses  are arranged in accordance with the conditions created by the traditional family organization and the closed domestic economy, with units of varying functions surrounding an inner courtyard. At the entrance to the room,  there is a place for shoes, from which a step leads up to the ”saki’s which forms the actual seating space. The ski is surrounded on two or three sides by raised platforms of stone or wood. The walls of the rooms contain niches of various sizes and functions. The rooms on the ground floor have vaulted roofs with pointed arches,while those on the upper floor have roofs consisting of rows of wooden beams known as ”hezen”. These beans are usually left exposed although in some houses belonging to the more well-to-do and influential, they are covered with a wooden ceiling with central boss. All the houses have flat earthen roofs.