The Semeli Hotel Magazine - www.semelihotel.gr Semeli The Hotel - Magazine | Page 92

Cycladic blue and white minimalist chic: Fact or fiction?
Whitewashed, cube houses build next and on top of each
other against the brilliant Aegean blue: this is the arche-
typical image which has made Cyclades famous all over
the world.
Yet historically these island homes were painted in dif-
ferent colours – ochre, grey, indigo, and terracotta. Often
too they were left unpainted, the color of stone. When the
Aegean was swarmed by pirates, complete visual integra-
tion into the landscape –camouflage, in other words– was
the only sensible choice.
In 1938 however, dictator John Metaxas decrees that
for hygienic purposes all Cycladic houses must be covered
with lime. At the time cholera plagues the country and
even spreads to domestic birds. Lime is considered to be
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the quintessential disinfectant while use of bleach is not
yet widespread. So the houses on the Greek Islands turn
white overnight under the austere gaze of the local police-
man.
Two decades later, in 1955, Queen Frederica, urged by
artists and socialites of her era, such as Eleni Vlachou,
Spyros Melas, and Kostas Biris, presents the prime minis-
ter, Konstantinos Karamanlis, with an advertising proposal
for Greek tourism. It is the image of the well maintained,
whitewashed, cube houses of Mykonos, owned by local
and foreign patricians. The rest, as they say, is history. Put
simply, white, the colour of purity, combined with blue, the
colour of the sky and the Aegean sea, nowadays means
Greece.
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