THE STILL EXISTING OTTOMAN HAMAMS IN THE GREEK TERRITORY

General remarks that can be made, resting on the comparisons of the main typological groups suggested by scholars such as Kiel, Klinghardt, Glück and Eyice are: a. Baths in the Greek territory do not form original prototypes, since their architectural characteristics match the rhythmological and structural features found in all the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman architects based their plans on a code of constructional techniques and rules of proportion. Greece at that time, was a province of the Empire and if we recognize this fact, we shall understand the reason of this homogeneity, as the process of a building’s construction there did not differ from the one in the Asiatic region. THE OTTOMANHAMAMS IN GREECE METU JFA 2004/1-2 93 Figure 11. Gazi Mihal Hamam, Edirne, ýlýklýk dome. Kuban (1976, Fig. 11). Figure 12. Apollonia Hamam, Lake Volvi, Langadas, plan (drawing: E. Hadjitryfonos) Hadjitrifonos (1988, 144). b. The ground floor of the buildings was adopted by a certain model. The state architect plainly concerned himself with establishing the main structures of buildings under his supervision, after which they were left in the hands of master craftsmen, occasionally overseen by him. It was traditional materials and building techniques which decided the eventual structure of the building, beyond the architect’s very basic plan. The officially appointed architects that supervised the construction and guided the workers, followed the formal design (Moutsopoulos 1967, 51). c. Craftsmen bore a common vocabulary, which was used for all aspects of buildings. This is also supported by the following facts that, as builders’ corporations, the esnaf (συντεχνίες) (Goodwin 1971, 22), were moving from one place to the other. They applied their construction techniques, in accordance to the site, regional materials and the financial aid of each donator.