









































introduction
Contemporary architectural practice increasingly 

makes use of technology for the design and 
creation of buildings and environments. While 
many architects see computer aided design as a 
drawing tool, others embrace parametric design 
ideologically, and propose it as a theory and 
method which can offer architectural solutions 
even in complex urban landscapes. Following a 
competition, the refurbishment of Eleftheria Square 
in Nicosia was awarded to the office of Zaha Hadid 
Architects (ZHA), one of the major offices that 
takes parametric design ideologically. The choice of 
Hadid’s proposal proved a major controversy among 
the local population from the announcement of 
the competition results in 2005 to the square’s 
completion in 2020. The discussion focuses mainly 
on the aesthetic appropriateness of the proposal 
imposed on the historical context, (especially 
its proximity to the Venetian fortifications and 
the old town) despite the fact that such an urban 
intervention encompasses many more issues: 
memory and historicity, society, politics, culture, 
and aesthetics, as well as design methodology.

In this article, I attempt a hermeneutical approach 
for examining the ZHA proposal for the square, 
in order to see it from various perspectives and 
understand its significance in relation to its cultural 
context. I will start with examining the history of 
the site, offering an interpretation of  the meaning it 
had for the local population, as a topos in the public 
realm. After investigating the main requirements 
of the competition, I will assess the reception of 
the project and the dominant arguments used in 

Parametric Design in the Historic 
Urban Domain. The Case of Eleftheria 
Square by Zaha Hadid Architects

Stella Evangelidou



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ou Fig.1: Map of Nicosia by 
Giovanni Francesco Camocio, 
(ca. 1570 AD) 

Fig.2: Giulio Savorgnano, 
Nicosia fortifications (1567).

Colonial openings

Fig.3: Map of Nicosia. 
Elefhteria Square, 
Competition brief (2005)

Fig.4: a Celebration at 
Eleftheria Square (1952)



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the local discussions. In an attempt to understand 
the architects’ methodological approach, I will 
explain their design approach, as evident in their 
theoretical engagement with parametric design. To 
contextualize their approach, I also will investigate 
the opposing views of others on such practices. 

Through a hermeneutical approach, and 
by using a theoretical discourse ranging from 
philosophers Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault 
to architectural theorist Alberto Pérez-Gómez, I 
will relate the project to broader concerns on topics 
such as place and meaning, the contemporary 
public realm, the issue of attunement, parametric 
design, and the socio-political implications of a 
particular morphology in historical settings. I also 
will explore how the project, as it has been built, is 
used by residents of and tourists visiting Nicosia. 
It raises questions about architecture’s ethical role 
and impact on society in the era of globalization. 
Through this examination, the Eleftheria Square 
project in Nicosia can be seen as a case study in the 
promise and pitfalls of employing parametric design 
in the historic urban domain.

Historical background—The site as topos
Even though Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, 

has never been designed as an Ideal City, [fig.1] 
its fortifications were a model of Renaissance 
engineering meant to be improved upon and 
replicated in ideal cities elsewhere within the 
Republic of Venice. Designed by the military 
engineer Giulio Savorgnano in 1567, the walls were 
still incomplete three years later when the town was 
besieged by the Ottomans. Yet they still remain 
largely intact to this day. When the old town started 
expanding beyond its limits in the late-nineteenth 
century, the British colonial government created 
openings [fig.2] through the Venetian walls in the 
form of bridges or roads, in order to connect it with 
the new suburbs. Two of these openings were wider 
than the others. Even though they were bridges over 



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a moat, they functioned as collective spaces. One acquired the function 
of a bus terminal, whereas the other functioned as a gathering space in 
the form of a square. This certainly occurred due to its location: it is an 
extension of the historical commercial main street, connected to a long 
avenue that leads out of the city. The square moreover is adjacent to the 
bastion where until recently the City Hall was located. 

As a result of political hostilities between Turks and Greeks on the 
island, a buffer zone has been erected, first in 1963 and then in 1974, 
that divides Nicosia into  northern and southern parts. Thus, while the 
historical city center, with its gothic cathedral and piazza, remained within 
the limits of the Turkish occupied territory in the north, the square was 
appropriated by the Greek citizens as the city’s main square in the south. 
[fig.3] As such, it developed strong socio-political qualities, and became 
a place where spontaneous demonstrations and celebrations would take 
place. The bastion, being at a higher level, acted many times as a stage 
enabling direct contact between the organizers or politicians above and the 
people in the square below. [fig.4] Occasionally, the municipality would 
organize festivals, during which this urban setting would function as an 
open-air concert hall. 

Associated with such communal events, the square was then renamed 
“Eleftheria”,  which is the Greek word for freedom.1 It has been, therefore, 
a topos in both a phenomenological as well as in a political sense. It was 
a topos in the phenomenological sense of the Genius Loci, as defined by 
Christian Norberg-Schulz: a place which can be determined by its physical 
characteristics, and yet is more than that. A topos is defined as an existential 
space that carries intangible qualities which can only be experienced, 
rather than be determined by geometry and matter. In the case of man-
made places, the qualities of a topos encompass the way a group of people 
draws on both its own virtues and the virtues of the space in which it is 
settled, thus acting and developing a degree of collective consciousness. 
Places where people have such a relationship with their built environment 
conjure up a sense of belonging. Consequently, such a place holds both the 
life of the people and the aura of the several historical layers, which reflect 
its special character and its own distinct spirit, its Genius Loci.2 Since their 
construction, the Nicosia city walls have endured Venetian domination, 
Ottoman and British rule, the country’s independence, and the Turkish 
invasion, but also the spirit of the people in social struggle and rejoicing. 

In addition to its metaphysical qualities, the socio-political activities 
that took place on the square gave it qualities that defined it as a topos 
politikos. According to Hannah Arendt, the life of the polis is possible 
through such activities of common action (praxis) in the public realm, 



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which is the common world that gathers us 
together. Arendt relates public space to the space 
of appearances, that is, face-to-face human 
interactions. Appearance is a revelation of oneself, 
of one’s position and essence, to others. However, as 
Seyla Benhabib explains, the public realm is a place 
where self-interest is transformed into a common 
public goal that transcends the boundaries of face-
to-face society.3 It is the presence of others, that see 
and hear from different positions), and demanding 
something in common with others to be more 
permanent than our earthly lives, which assures 
us of the reality of both the world and ourselves. 
Our perception of reality, Arendt argues, depends 
upon the phenomenality which takes place in the 
public realm. Consequently, our sense of our own 
existence depends on it. 

The public realm is thus a political place where 
the life of praxis (vita activa) becomes a political 
life (vios politikos). Arendt considers praxis as the 
highest and most important level of active life. 
As a political action, praxis is the true realization 
of human freedom. Topos politikos transcends the 
lifespan of one generation, and thus transforms 
itself into a place of potential earthly immortality.4 
Eleftheria Square has been the public realm of 
the polis where its citizens, for generations, would 
gather in order to participate in a democratic 
expression of their collective concerns. It was, in 
this way, an intersubjective space which bonded, 
but also differentiated, the members of the society 
in the democratic manifestation in the polis. It 
was through actions marked by their essence of 
democracy and plurality that the topos gained, in 
turn, its existential quality. 

The competition for a new city square and the reception 
of the winning scheme 
In 2005, the Nicosia municipality announced a 

competition for a new “bridge-square.” The main 
challenges of the requirements, as given in the 

The public 
realm is a 

place where 
self-interest 

is transformed 
into a common 

public goal that 
transcends the 

boundaries of 
face-to-face 

society

“

”



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competition brief, were: i) to respect the monument of the Venetian walls, 
by following the international conventions and the local legislation on 
antiquities; ii) to design a permanent, two-lane bridge for vehicular traffic; 
iii) to provide a public space that would allow social interaction during 
all seasonal climatic conditions; iv) to pay attention to the materials and 
details, to propose street furniture as well as new programmatic uses; v) the 
proposed construction and materials had to allow reversibility, since only 
the bridge for vehicles would be permanent, whereas part of the square 
was to be demolished in the future after the construction of a new public 
square, in a new refurbished area outside the walls. [fig.3] As stated before, 
the competition was won by Zaha Hadid Architects, with a proposal 
which caused intense controversy between the citizens during and after 
the realization of the project. [fig.5.] According to the description of the 
office’s website, the design of Eleftheria Square represents a “historically 
significant architectural intervention” which aspires to reconnect the old 

Fig.5: Zaha Hadid Architects, 
Eleftheria Square and moat 
park, Nicosia (2010-21)

Fig.6: Zaha Hadid Architects, 
Eleftheria Square and moat 
park, Nicosia (2010-21). The 
“dish.” View from the moat



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fortified town with the modern city, by means of a 
“bold vision of coherence and continuity.” The level 
of the square, which the architects call “the dish,” 
has a slight upward inclination toward the moat, so 
as to act as an amphitheater addressing the bastion 
[fig.6], and in order to create a dialogue between 
the old and the new, as the office’s representative 
explained in an interview.5 

According to the same representative, the main 
structural novelty that was to be introduced was 
the unorthodox shape of the columns resting on 
the moat, with a thin tip and opening to a wide 
diameter at the top. This design was a solution to the 
problem of excavating into the moat and disturbing 
the historical layers beneath. He added that the 
innovative design and construction technique at 
such a scale was possible only due to parametric 
design, the method first applied in the Phaeno 
Science Centre, which ZHA had just completed in 
Germany. Apart from the information shared above, 
there is no other information recorded regarding 
the architects’ concept and intentions for the form 
chosen for the specific project and its integration 
with the existing urban fabric. The Eleftheria 
Square project was nominated by a local jury for the 
Mies van der Rohe Awards which, as an institution, 
demands architecture to respond to vernacular, 
traditional, cultural, and natural elements. The 
views of the supporters of the project, engaged in 
the local debate, is well summarized in the jury’s 
accompanying supportive essay from the local 
committee, which interprets the upward lifting of 
“the dish” as a symbolic gesture toward the future, 
and its circular geometry, which embraces the 
bastion, as a reference to the past. The essay regards 
the lower level of the moat as “a secret garden” with 
its own microclimate and distinct spatial qualities. 
The jury further praised the aesthetic quality of the 
details and the secret garden, which give to the overall 
project an artistic value which is accompanied with 
spatial experiences and promenades. In such a way, 



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it concludes, the project not only “re-establishes the area as a gateway to 
the old city, but also as a unique destination in itself.”6

On the other side, the opponents of the project criticize the Hadid 
scheme firstly for the way it visually clashes with the monument of the 
Venetian walls “through its scale and materials.” They claim that the 
Venetian walls function at the level of the intimate and the familiar, despite 
their monumentality, because of the earthy quality of the sandstone, which 
is also used extensively in the buildings of the old city with the narrow 
streets. [fig.7-8] The color and texture of the sandstone is in contrast to 
the coldness of the marble and the gray and white concrete of the new 
square. [fig.9] They perceive the new square as massive and monolithic, 
whereas the Venetian walls and the old town consist of small units and 
intimate spaces that relate to the human scale.7 The materials used for 
Hadid’s square, in conjunction with the hyper-aestheticized forms and 
sophisticated details, have been considered as alien to the locals’ sense of 
aesthetics and habits. 

The lack of consideration for the local climatic conditions is another 
issue. Cyprus is sunny most of the year, whereas Nicosia, being at the 
center of the island, is exposed to high temperatures that, in the summer, 
can sometimes exceed 40oC. Indifference to the microclimate of Nicosia 
prohibits people from gathering in the square for at least half the year. 
The unsuitability of the public square to the weather conditions limits 
public encounters due to the reflective materials and lack of shade. In 
addition, this criticism focuses on the fact that the proposed scheme failed 
to respond to the basic programmatic requirements of the competition, 
since the construction materials didn’t seem to be reversible, there was no 

Fig.7: Materiality and scale 
in the old town: Nicosia 
within the Venetian walls..

Fig.8: Materiality and scale 
in the old town: Nicosia 
within the Venetian walls..



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vehicular bridge, and no furnishings were proposed, 
while compliance with the Antiquities Law was 
disputed. It is also important to note that the design 
at the moat level was not part of the competition, 
but a later commission added to the project.

Although the square garnered praise for its 
formal qualities, the negative criticism weighs more 
on its human utility. The anthropocentric concern 
examines the metaphysical quality of the character 
and sense of the place, as well as the relation between 
its social and urban aspects, on the phenomenological 
dimension. From this short analysis of the scheme, 
one can conclude that issues such as materiality, 
historical layering, climate, local habits, and ways 
of socializing and using public space were given 
little consideration during the design of the new 
Eleftheria square by the winning office. The debate, 
which took place in the local press and across social 
media, was often accompanied with both caustic 
and ironic remarks directed toward the architect 
and the mayor, who were seen as indifferent elites, 
distant from the operation of the “real world.” Such 
criticism was related to the extensive time required 
for the project to be completed, due to the many 
delays caused by conflicts between the architect, the 
municipality, and the contractors, which, in turn, 
caused an increase in cost and the disruption of the 
city center.

Related theoretical discourses 
In the absence of more information from ZHA 

regarding the concept behind Eleftheria Square, 
examination of the theoretical discourse which 
constitutes the background of their work is our only 
option for understanding the designers’ thought 
process. Concurrently, an examination of other 
theoretical discourses concerning new architecture 
in historic and sensitive environments can inform a 
critical perspective on the subject.  

The reference to, and influence of, the Russian 
avant-garde on Zaha Hadid’s work since her 



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student years has been discussed and analyzed by many theorists and 
critics. Reflecting on her early paintings, Hadid confirmed her interest 
in the concept of fragmentation, abstraction, and explosion, as well as 
in deconstructing ideas of repetitiveness and mass production, which 
constitute the characteristics of modern architecture. According to ZHA’s 
website, “for Hadid, painting was a design tool, and abstraction was an 
investigative structure for imagining architecture and its relationships to 
the world we live in.” “Her paintings,” it continues, “were conceived as 
a manifesto of a utopian world,” and “prefigure the potential of digital 
processes,” which explains why “technology and innovation have always 
been central to the work of the office”.8

Her collaboration with Patrik Schumacher in 1988, whose work 
in parametric design complemented Hadid’s approach, enabled the 
realization of their stylistic projects, and achieved both technological and 
structural breakthroughs. Schumacher’s perspective, as explained in his 
massive theoretical books Parametricism as Style—Parametricism Manifesto 
20089 and The Autopoiesis of Architecture,10 offer insight into the ZHA 
approach to architecture. In both works, Schumacher claims that today’s 
architecture has difficulty addressing the complexity of contemporary 
cities and societies, and therefore needs to reassert its methods. He sees an 
“inability in modernism and deconstructivism to form a new sustainable 
view.” Therefore, he highlights the need to discover a new comprehensive 
theoretical system which can describe architecture from within its own 
internal constitution.11 

Since architecture, according to Schumacher, cannot exist without 
theory, all buildings before Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), the first 
architect offering a theory of architecture, fall into the category of tradition. 
Schumacher asserts that each previous style in history constitutes a new 
research paradigm defeating its predecessor. Therefore, the “history of 

Fig.9: Zaha Hadid Architects, 
Eleftheria Square, The 
level of the square.



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architecture can be thought of in terms of cycles 
of innovation and shifts between revolutionary 
periods.”12 Parametricism is thus, according to 
him, the style of our times, because it is considered 
the architectural avant-garde of the technological 
era and, in addition, it can explain architecture 
itself as a distinct, autonomous network of 
communications. The “autopoiesis” of architecture 
is architecture’s ability for self-production. This 
is based on a theory that focuses on architectural 
communication that observes and analyzes how 
individual communications depend upon, and 
reproduce structures such as concepts, values, styles 
and methods. Communications are the drawings, 
texts, and built works, whereas built works are 
the set of reference points within the network of 
architectural communications. 

Conceived as a scientific theory about architecture 
from “within architecture,” it is promoted as the “end 
of architectural theories.” Reflecting architecture’s 
evolving patterns of communication in relation to 
the societal domain, the autopoiesis of architecture 
and parametricism do not communicate with 
straight lines and platonic solids as they did in 
the past, nor with typologies, zones, or territories. 
Instead, the theory involves working with primitives 
such as “splines, blobs, nurds, and particles” 
organized by scripts, as well as by “gradient fields 
of activity and variable social scenarios calibrated 
with various event parameters.” Since architectural 
elements have become so malleable through 
parametricism, one can ask for further softening, 
further differentiation, correlation, script, and so 
on.13 In this method, there is a cross-connectedness 
which, unlike phenomenology, always depends on 
computer data. 

Schumacher suggests that “parametricism” could 
introduce new ideas to the architectural scene. 
To him, it “can be summarized in the slogan” of 
importing an “architectural and urban repertoire 
that is geared up to create complex, polycentric 

Schumacher 
claims that 

today’s 
architecture 

has difficulty 
addressing the 
complexity of 

contemporary 
cities and 

societies, and 
therefore needs 

to reassert its 
methods.

“

”



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urban and architectural fields which are densely layered and continuously 
differentiated.” Style, buildings, and cities are described in terms of 
liquidity, flow, void, openness, and complexity, and their compliance to the 
tools of parametric design.14 The images in the Parametricism Manifesto are 
related to Hadid’s utopian painting, London 2066 and many others.15 The 
“active shake” of the city occurs by using similar parameters to large scale 
projects where open spaces, streets, railway lines, and water networks are 
redefined in new relationships and new possibilities in urban experiments. 

The theoretical ground expressed in Hadid’s paintings and Schumacher’s 
manifesto share similar and intense formalistic elements and fluidity with 
ZHA’s architectural projects built all over the world. Despite the location 
or country in which they are built, these projects look alike, having 
similar forms and even photorealistic renderings from the conceptual to 
the final construction stage. At the same time, the language and notions 
Schumacher uses to describe this methodology are hardly intelligible 
for people unfamiliar with the technological aspect of digital design. 
Nevertheless, these notions are expected to be understood, at least by 
the younger generations, since this method is well established in the 
educational program of architecture schools. Nonetheless, this language 
is far removed from any previous form of architectural production and 
representation, which remains haptic; it might instead sound more like a 
technical description of the inside functioning of a machine, rather than 
one regarding the “insides of architecture,” as Schumacher claims. 

At the opposite end of the argument about the place of science and 
technology in human life, many twentieth-century theorists have spoken 
of its negative course, beginning with the shift in consciousness that 
occurred after Descartes and Galileo. Amongst them, the architectural 
theorist Alberto Pérez-Gómez further explains the shift that occurred 
in the architectural field. In his latest work, Attunement: Architectural 
Meaning after the Crisis of Modern Science, he argues that topos, as a 
qualitative experiential site, was substituted by geometric space, since 
Galileo and Descartes saw the universe as a homogeneous geometric 
void in which all bodies were described by the same mathematical laws. 
It was under the influence of such epistemological thinking that Claude 
Perrault (1613-1688) came to understand architectural representation as a 
systematized set of sections, along with Cartesian planes.16 A century later, 
according to Pérez-Gómez, Jean-Nicholas-Louis Durand (1760–1834) 
believed that architectural meaning was dependent only on the efficient, 
mechanical understanding of structure and cost-effective use of materials. 
For him, architecture was essentially a social need for a functional shelter. 
Durand implemented sophisticated tools of representation for producing 



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innovative work that was unresponsive to its 
cultural context. He preferred strictly instrumental 
design mechanisms, with the belief that architecture 
is the objective space of Cartesian geometry. Thus, 
a “building” meant its use, and any emotion 
was beyond its scope. By the beginning of the 
nineteenth century, it was a common assumption 
among architects that architectural space could be 
easily represented through descriptive geometry and 
axonometric projection based on visual attributes. 
This, Pérez-Gómez argues, neglected the emotional 
aspects and qualities experienced in a real, physical, 
and transcendental space.17 

This translates, today, to the production of 
digital space and fashionable innovations through 
architectural software. Pérez-Gómez, therefore, is 
surprised by neither Schumacher’s ideas presented 
in Autopoiesis nor the popular desire for “intelligent” 
buildings with “computerized minds” for adjusting 
to our comfort. He claims that as long as the use 
of technology enhances telecommunication devices 
and production techniques, our own sensory and 
perceptual abilities will be diminished. And since 
our urban environments emerge from this method 
of production, which reduces space to a set of 
coordinates, they remain devoid of qualities which 
involve all our senses. For Pérez-Gómez, the crisis of 
modern science and architecture consists of the fact 
that parametric strategies and tools generate forms 
and novel buildings that fail to propose meaningful, 
attuned environments for human culture. In this 
way they “exacerbate our sense of despair in view of 
the meaninglessness of existence.”18 

Further, such novel structures are in line with 
strategies for the commodification of architecture 
within the contemporary neoliberal political 
spectrum. The art critic Hal Foster offers an 
explanation of the process, which is aided by high-
tech materials and electronic manipulations in 
order to become signs and symbols. He claims that 
the structure and the program are distorted in a way 

For Pérez-
Gómez, the crisis 

of modern science 
and architecture 
“exacerbate our 
sense of despair 

in view of the 
meaninglessness 

of existence.”

“

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to achieve a sculptural monumental effect which, at times, has a scale that 
dominates the landscape. Formal expression is stressed, above all, in order 
to impress, while behind the rhetorical façades there are, many times, 
conventional interiors. Thus, the form of the building serves as “a sign that 
overwhelms the context.” According to Foster, this is a winning populist 
formula with the signature of a star-architect, which serves the marketing 
policies of “museums, companies, cities, and other corporate entities that 
want to be perceived, through instant icons, as global players.”19  

Eleftheria Square fulfills Foster’s description. Moreover, since the 
mayors and municipality officials have used the name of the architect and 
the design as a branding tool to promote the square as a tourist attraction, 
in order to raise the city’s economy and status. The language of the project 
coincides with that of city branding policies which turn a location into a 
destination, while at the same time rejecting its own historicity and the 
meaning of the place. Topos, in this case, becomes spectacle. In such a way, 
architecture turns into an image that serves more the market economy 
than society.  

Architecture as a language and art form is symbolic, and whether it has 
a meaningful presence for its users or not, it has its own meaning within 
the urban context. From the point of view of philosopher Hans Georg 
Gadamer’s theory of hermeneutics, new architecture in a historic setting 
can generate multiple interpretations, which are constantly regulated by 
what a setting has been in the past, and what it wants to be, by means of 
the architecture of the new intervention. These interpretations might fall 
into the realm of prejudices. Prejudices for Gadamer are the pre-conditions 
of understanding. In the case of new architecture in old settings, we 
distinguish blind prejudices from productive prejudices only through a 
dialogical encounter with the past as a whole. Life, says Gadamer, is the 
dialogue between past and present. It is through this dialogue that we can 
define our living values and give meaning to our lives and surroundings.20 

To understand the past is a necessary metaphysical basis for life. The 
context for the new architecture relates to people’s understanding of 
their setting. Yet the relation to the architecture of the past goes beyond 
the historical period of which people have knowledge.21 Gadamer talks 
about the harmony of all details, with the whole as a criterion for this 
understanding. Failure to achieve harmony means that the understanding 
has failed. How do we, then, understand the past? For Gadamer, it is a 
process of holistic experiences. Understanding tradition is an essential 
element to understanding existence. This understanding also takes place 
on visual and tangible grounds, such as materials, construction techniques, 
texture, colors, spatial disposition, and volumetric articulation.22 In such 



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a way, Gadamer offers an analysis of the tangible 
qualities of the Genius Loci.

From a similar perspective, Pérez-Gómez 
discusses how, for centuries, the European city 
functioned as a theater of complex and diverse 
atmospheres. He explains “atmospheres” as 
the character, mood, and ambience of a place 
apprehended by all the senses. Atmospheres result 
from both natural and manmade spaces. Besides 
their materials and details, they include smells, 
sounds, and habits. These constitute an aesthetic 
experience which is multisensory and emotional, 
and cannot be reduced to distant “pictorial” forms. 
If architecture, he claims, does not aim to deal 
with local cultures, the lives of people, their habits, 
places, stories, and history, it will remain detached 
and contextually alien.23 

With the term attunement, Pérez-Gómez calls for 
an architecture that is attuned to its location and 
its inhabitants, and can thus enhance our human 
values and capacities. Architecture remains in crisis, 
he states, as long as its social relevance is lost to 
formal innovation and algorithmic parameters that 
determine the physical environment, while ignoring 
the meaning of places. The meaning of places rests 
in the poetics of materials and cultural values. He 
argues that the understanding of its meaning is 
possible when architecture is engaged in a dialogical 
process between present and past, when it operates 
as a communicative setting for societies. By 
understanding its meaning, which is a constituent 
part of our consciousness, we are engaged with 
the spiritual dimension of life and a process of 
self-understanding. Pérez-Gómez delves into an 
existential reflection on the meaning of life, which 
is inextricably linked to the meaning of architecture. 
He thus poses a question for the ethical dimension 
of architecture and its service to society. To be fully 
self-aware, he claims, participation in an external 
environment replete with meanings and emotions 
is necessary. Such transformative atmospheres bring 

to understand 
the past is a 

necessary 
metaphysical 
basis for life

“
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productive change. Attuned architecture permits people to be attuned to 
their worldly actions and habits.24 

 
The “actual world” - the current use of the Square 
If we consider Gadamer’s and Pérez-Gómez’s hermeneutical approach 

valid, it is obvious that the parametric methodology used for Eleftheria 
Square did not make sufficient consideration for either history, meaning or 
attunement. However, an integrated view of the Eleftheria Square project 

Fig.10: Zaha Hadid Architects, 
Eleftheria Square. Occasional 
concerts under the square

Fig.11: Zaha Hadid Architects, 
Eleftheria Square. Late after-
noon (2022)

Fig.12: Zaha Hadid Architects, 
Eleftheria Square. Moat level, 
weekends in late afternoon 
(2022)



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is not possible without considering the way it is 
now being used, including its complementary part 
on the adjacent moat level. A few months after its 
completion, the first event organized on the square 
celebrated a political anniversary. This was the first 
and last collective event of any character to take 
place on the square, according to the municipality’s 
records. After that, the municipality moved all events 
below the square, on the moat level. Since then, on 
the lower level underneath the square there have 
been many events of various, other than political, 
character. [fig.10] Some uses that were overlooked 
by ZHA in its design, but deemed by the city council 
appropriate for the moat park, were designed by the 
municipality, such as a small amphitheater and a 
playground, which appropriated some edges of the 
park.    

The level of the square functions, mainly, as a 
pedestrian passage-way between the new and the 
old walled city. During the day, it is usually deserted, 
especially due to the intense sunshine, [fig.9] but 
also because it provides no other uses. On weekend 
nights and afternoons, however, the square attracts 
many people from the migrant (Asian and African) 
community working in Nicosia. [fig.11] The same 
occurs during weekends, at the level of the moat, 
which is overrun by migrants taking selfies. [fig.12] 
These are, perhaps, the most vibrant moments of the 
square and the moat park, since the locals, who don’t 
hang out on the square, usually leave immediately 
after visiting for an event at the moat-park. Besides 
the locals who visited the site when it opened, and 
despite the attractive drone photos advertising 
the site taken by the municipality, [fig.5] it seems 
that it is not a destination for them. Likewise at 
the moat level, although there is an attractive park 
with fountains, lawns and tree clumps, located on 
floral-pattern concrete paving—all shapes ordered 
by parametric design.

 These observations lead to the question of 
why the site cannot become a pluralistic collective 



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space of exchange and meaning for all. Would it be valid to suggest that 
this might be due to its strong character of a pleasure garden that caters 
only to visual pleasure, in conjunction with the diminishing importance 
of the Venetian walls as a mute backdrop to the irrelevant scenery in 
front of it? The deserted appearance of the square during the day turns it 
into a dystopia, whereas the project’s site as a whole can be defined as a 
heterotopia. Michel Foucault, in his work Of Other Spaces, defines a utopia 
to be an ideal place of a perfect yet unreal society in bliss and describes 
heterotopias as the real places that have strayed from what is considered 
“normal” and are approaching the “other.”25 Both the square and the moat 
below fit Foucault’s description of heterotopias of the transitory, as well 
as of the two extreme types of heterotopia, of illusion and compensation, 
respectively. A heterotopia of the transitory is a place absolutely temporal, 
disoriented from the eternal, and where time is fleeting, like in a festival. 
In a heterotopia of illusion we encounter informal, outside of “the normal” 
social activities in an illusory space which exposes the rationality of the 
adjacent space. A heterotopia of compensation, according to Foucault’s 
terminology, fits his example of the “colonies:” a perfectly organized space 
that leaves its mark in the culture, which aims to be an ideal model of 
organization to which we all must adapt.26 

Conclusion 
Eleftheria Square, as an integral part of the Venetian walls, connecting 

the old city with the new, the city’s history and its memory, carried a 
profound meaning for the inhabitants of Nicosia that can be understood 
and defined by the notion of topos. The discussion and controversy regarding 
the refurbished Eleftheria Square will, perhaps, continue for many years, 
given its importance to the city. This is so because of its central location as 
well as its historicity, its continuous cost of maintenance and surveillance, 
and its function as a public domain in flux in an emerging multicultural 
city. Besides its specificity, the project can be seen as a case study for new 
projects in historic urban environments designed via a similar parametric 
approach.

Reviewing the examination of the project, one could say that several 
considerations arise regarding the role of architecture in society. On the 
one hand, there are issues regarding the more technical aspect of the 
production of architecture and its management. On the other, there 
are issues related to its humanitarian and spiritual roles. In both cases, 
the core issue is ethical, and concerns those to whom architecture bears 
responsibility. Issues related to the responsibility of the competition jury 
to meet the programmatic requirements, the responsibility of municipal 



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authorities when the initial budget is exceeded, the 
management of the schedule, the management of 
taxpayers’ money, the extension of the project’s scale 
without a new tender, and the failure to comply 
with conventions on antiquities, are related to the 
technocratic aspect, but are not insignificant in the 
world of architectural practice. On the contrary, 
they are related to the ethical code of the discipline. 
Even though these issues are not usually heard 
beyond local societies, in our time of globalized 
architecture it is worth studying projects of star-
architecture and how and/or why their execution 
might affect the wellbeing of a society. 

Although the technical aspect is short-term 
and can, eventually, be handled, the actual built 
projects and their consequences are long-term. The 
result of a theoretical and methodological attempt 
based on “parametricism” for a utopian landscape 
that would be “self-produced” and can reproduce 
communication structures, such as concepts and 
values, seems to become, in the Eleftheria Square 
project, a place that segregates society. The public 
realm, according to Arendt’s definition, does 
not emerge automatically because people gather. 
Instead, it occurs when their opinions are openly 
expressed, and their collective goal is manifested 
through actions that are possible due to human 
diversity and agency.27 The hyper-aestheticized and 
non-functional forms have displaced political 
actions from the site. Eleftheria Square has lost its 
quality as a topos politikos. Despite the promise of 
the inclusion of human functions into parametric 
design, it seems that algorithms on a computer 
screen cannot, at least yet, engage peoples’ histories, 
their sites with multiple meanings, their memories, 
or social habits. Instead, while aligned with the 
demands of a marketplace that commodifies 
architecture, “parametricism” results in an aesthetic 
homogenization on its top side, while it is only 
underneath and around its margins that the creation 
of heterotopias such as those at Eleftheria Square; 

The public 
realm does 
not emerge 

automatically 
because people 
gather. Instead, 
it occurs when 

their opinions are 
openly expressed 

and their 
collective goal 

is manifested 
through actions 

that are possible 
due to human 
diversity and 

agency.

“

”



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heterotopias of the transitory, of illusion, and of compensation. 

If we consider that human consciousness needs external environments 
as vessels for meaning and emotion for its self-awareness, as well as dialogue 
and exchange in a pluralistic environment, these spaces of aesthetic 
homogenization cannot offer the space for a conscious life on the spiritual, 
social, and political level. Since the political is closely associated with 
aesthetic experience, and since at the core of the aesthetic experience is life 
itself, our harmony with our surroundings is an important factor in our 
psychosomatic health. As Pérez-Gómez says, an ethical architecture cannot 
but promote such attunement with our physical places, which are of utmost 
importance for our well-being. Cities with alienating environments cause 
alienation with culture and result in a sense of purposelessness. They are 
sources of malaise, contributing to despair. For when architecture functions 
as a “high-tech drug,” says Pérez-Gómez, it simply provides comfort in 
order to avoid boredom and the reality of death.28 If architecture will 
continue to eliminate spaces that promote human exchange and awareness 
by replacing them with “intelligent” and “spectacular” places that promote 
lethargy, narcissism, and illusion, we will probably need to reconsider its 
role in, and responsibility for, the survival of culture. 

Endnotes
1. After the Second World War, and prior to the name “Eleftheria” 

(Freedom), the square was named after Ioannis Metaxas. He was the 
Greek prime minister who rejected an ultimatum to surrender imposed 
by Italy, committing Greece to the Allies and bringing the country into 
the war against the Nazis and Mussolini. Thus, the square was for many 
decades associated with the “No” of the Greek resistance and passion 
for freedom.  

2. Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of 
Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1979), 6–22.

3. Seyla Benhabib, The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt. (Thousand 
Oaks/London/New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996), 200–201.

4. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, (Second Edition) (Chicago: 
The University of Chicago Press, 1998 [1958]), 7, 15, 50–72.  

5.  Σταματίου, Ελίνα. ‘Ο Χρίστος Πασσάς των Zaha Hadid Architects 
αποκαλύπτει τη νέα Πλατεία Ελευθερίας.’ Sell & Build – Scientific 
Construction Magazine, February,27 2011; http://www.sellandbuild.
com/interview/5355 (accessed December 18, 2019).

6. Cyprus Architects Association. Β’ Φάση Κυπριακής Συμμετοχής – EU Mies 
Awards 2022; https://architecture.org.cy/v-fasi-kypriakis-symmetochis-
%e2%88%99-eu-mies-award-2022/ (accessed June 5, 2021).



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7. Στέλλα Ευαγγελίδου, ‘Αρχιτεκτονικός διαγωνισμός 
για την ανάπλαση της πλατείας Ελευθερίας και του 
περιβάλλοντα χώρου.’ O ΠΟΛΙΤΗΣ (Nicosia, 
June 4, 2005).

8. Zaha Hadid Architects. Zaha Hadid: Early paintings 
and drawings at the Serpentine  Sackler Gallery. 
https://www.zaha-hadid.com/2016/12/07/zaha-
hadid-early- paintings-and-drawings/ (accessed 
December 18, 2019).

9. Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism as Style—
Parametricist Manifesto. London. Presented 
and discussed at the Dark Side Club, 
11th Architecture Biennale, Venice, 2008. 
https://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/
Parametricism%20as%20Style.htm (accessed 
December 18, 2019).

10. Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism and the 
Autopoiesis of Architecture. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, 
September 2010.  https://www.patrikschumacher.
com/Texts/Parametricism%20and%20the%20
Autopoiesis%20of%20Architecture.html 
(accessed August 10, 2022).

11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13.Patrik Schumacher, CAA Annual Lecture 2018, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuW7_f_8-
Qsk&feature=youtu.befbclid=Iw-AR193znJFE
JsaWbZwlvEBs32GdEdk5F2svfqPz8c0ft1BF
Uc WDda1HyGWWQ (accessed December 18, 
2019).

14. Ibid.
15. Zaha Hadid Architects. London 2066, 

https://www.zaha-hadid.com/masterplans/
london-2066/ (accessed December 15, 2019)

16. Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Attunement: Architectural 
Meaning after the Crisis of Modern Science. 
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016), 
13, 23,119–20.

17. Ibid., 108, 127.
18. Ibid., 119–30, 225.
19. Hal Foster, ‘Image Building,’ in: Anthony 



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Vidler (ed.), Architecture between Spectacle and Use. (Williamstown, 
MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, 2008), 167, 175. 

20. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Crossroad, 
1986, c1975), 245–53.

21. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics (Editred by David 
E. Linge). (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 95–96

22. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 259–78.
23. Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Attunement, Architectural meaning after the crisis 

of modern science, (University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Department 
of Architecture Lecture Series. Fall 2020) https://www.umass.edu/
architecture/umass-department-architecture-lecture-series-fall-2020-
alberto-p%C3%A9rez-g%C3%B3mez.

24. Pérez-Gómez, Attunement, 216–30.
25. Michel Foucault and Jay Miskowiec, ‘Of Other Spaces,’ In: Diacritics, 

Vol.16, No.1, (Johns Hopkins University Press, Spring, 1986), 22–27
26. Ibid., 27.
27. Ibid., 198–199.
28. Ibid., 8.


