The Small Vast World: Abandonment and Revival of Terraced Vineyards in Salamiou, Cyprus

his paper examines a temporal terraced landscape area, in order to acknowledge its potential, and above all, its historical validity. For, when focusing on production generated on terraces, this in itself generates a particular kind of discourse prioritizing 'being' (e.g., drystone constructed objects, quantitative products) over 'becoming' (i.e., involving a process).  It also privileges what is distinct (diverse material outcomes) over what is shared (similar technics) (Catapoti-Relaki 2016).  These dialectical concerns are faced primarily by Cypriot architects, planners, but also farmers working with historic terraced landscapes. Yet, while being exclusively densely parcellated privately owned land, the wider landscape is perceived as open, quasi-public space and as of 2018, intangible heritage.

Scant writings about contemporary architecture on terraced landscapes, (Peter Zumthor's zinc museum deferring to the Swiss mountain setting perhaps comes to mind), means that in order to observe a wider landscape ensemble, investigative tools must be borrowed from relevant sciences, particularly archaeology. These might help to untangle contesting dialectic dynamics in order to envision new, convivial compatible spatiality. In other words, introducing the notion of technics as 'poesis' (Heidegger 1977), as a way of thinking, being in, and engaging with the world.

Agencies which contest, converge and dialectically antagonise each other, affect our scantily documented understanding by which the qualities of such landscapes have evolved. By observing the very shaping of history as evolutionary, by understanding the scale accommodating convivial use, re-use and abandonment, perhaps we could think of new '(r)evolutionary' interpretations (Catapoti-Relaki 2016); ones that attune to safeguarding the future of the terraced landscapes by prioritizing their 'becoming' over their 'being'.