Diatopic Comparison of the Ottoman House in Balkan Area

Abstract

The spread of the Ottoman house takes place during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, strongly subjugated by Western influence. This means long cohesion of local types with Ottoman until the total sharing and housing culture identification that took place definitively in the XIX century in all countries of the Balkan Peninsula. Therefore, the types analyzed are examples of the nineteenth century, located in Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The analysis of these houses, so far apart geographically and at the same time so near compositional, was carried out in accordance to a factorization method of the architectural organism according to tectonics stratification, which follows the spatial and functional study. The breakdown in horizontal layers allows us to study both, the constructive aspect, also the spatiality and functionality of the house, dealing with the issue of vertical connections and the language of the facade. The categories chosen for the comparison are those that represent the distinctive characters of the Ottoman house i.e. the centrality of the garden, the plasticity of the base (introvert) vs the analytical composition of the first floor (extrovert), the room as compositional form, rhythm, and full report - empty of the extroverted facade on the street and at the end, the large roof that unifies and reflects the hipped composition on the top floor in the conformation of its multiple pitched. The objective of the comparison is to verify the homogeneity of characters inhabited in geographic – cultural space of the Balkans and at the same time understand the conservation of native elements.