Building togetherness in Crete
The Author's Plan
by Colette Hartwich
Editor's Note: Not everything we do is political, and writer Colette Hartwich is here to remind us of that important fact. She is currently building a new home in Crete, and her notes on its construction are an important corrective to our fixation on politics in America and the world.
We wanted togetherness. We wanted collaboration. We wanted to honor each other’s presence and role in the magic of existence. We wanted a place of coming together for different generations, cultures, experiences and knowledge. We wanted a place of coming together with the natural elements.
The space was designed in relation to the landscape, the nearby village and the highly specific Cretan culture, its simple lines and traditional accents such as wooden doors with distinct upper and lower parts. We wanted to shelter some of the 46 olive trees that are both a source of future income and a significant part of the landscape. We would like to participate in an oil cooperative and contribute to the acknowledgement of the high quality of the Cretan oil, unfortunately often sold as Italian. Crete, for those who do not know, is famous for its distinctive Minoan culture (the labyrinth of the Minotaur anyone?) and for its fierce patriotism. During WWII, simple unarmed shepherds became famous for deterring Nazi Germany from entering the island and this way contributing to the long-term defeat of the Third Reich.
Many western Europeans, in particular Scandinavians already choose to spend most of their retirement in the village.
This house like many other in Crete could host permanently four to five creatives. A minimalist shape for simple and functional harmony between the landscape and the architecture in pure white and lack of superfluous details. The severity of a rectangle through its tunnel like structure allows for a peak of the mountain landscape, or depending on your position, a peak of the sea. The rectangles though primitive at first glance, reveal their fluidity as they grow into and out of one another.
It takes five minutes to walk to the village. If you make your trip on foot in the heat of the day, you can purchase beautiful jewelry in precious forms and details, and pottery in wonderful patterns. In Crete, the traders today are as skilled as they were back in the times of King Minos. The village is close by and we are just an extension of it. This harmony is meant for a closely linked community not a group of competing individuals, just as the rectangular modules of the building connect each other. A community for sharing... You know, the floor to ceiling windows really frame the landscape beautifully…
About the author: Colette Hartwich is a writer and a Development Assistance Specialist for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. She is also a patriotic diaspora Ukrainian who co-created a therapeutic farm for young Ukrainian autists in West Ukraine. She has four grandsons and a tiny granddaughter in the US. Ms. Hartwich lives in Berlin.
The opinions expressed in her postings are her own.
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