Time Zone : Museum of Cyprus

The Buffer Zone divides whole Cyprus and its capital Nicosia. What if that forbiden land turns into uniting factor instead of dividing? How can this frozen space be transformed? Can architecture surve as a solution to moral, ethnical, political problems? Concepts, experiments and metaphors combined all together try to give the answers.

In order to prevent that the project proposes transforming part of the zone into a museum complex, that would define the valuable characteristics of the historic environment and secure its existence, no mater the political changes. The museum as a institution that connects – cultures can be envisioned as a capsule of the past but also as a guideline for the future. The land we now call the Dead Zone can be transformed in to a powerful symbol of the united Cyprus. The museum is situated along the buffer zone as a metaphoric space crack that appears trough this frozen space. That allows visitors to enter the forbidden land and explore its history . The complex integrates not only the empty space in between but also a part of the presentative public buildings of the old town such as : churches, shops, schools etc.... In some areas the museum crosses through some of the old buildings defining a different type of spaces. The buildings are transformed into a galleries, workshops, labs, libraris. Leonard Cohen once said : There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.