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MetopoArchitects, Chania

MT 20.02

Reading room in the old baths, Rethymno

An Ottoman bath house of the seventeenth century, used as a store for fifty years, being repaired as a public reading room and archive.

Place
Old town, Rethymno
Status
Under construction
Period
2020 to 2026
Kind
Restoration
Floor area
390 m²
Sheet
7 of 8
Client
Municipality of Rethymno, with the regional antiquities service
The bath house from the square, with scaffolding on the small domes.
Fig. 1The bath house from the square, with scaffolding on the small domes.

The site

A bath house of the 1600s in the old town of Rethymno: one large domed room, two small domed rooms that were once the hot rooms, and a porch added in the nineteenth century. From the 1950s it was a warehouse for building materials; the star-shaped skylights in the domes were covered with cement.

The brief

A quiet public room for reading, and a safe place for the town's archive, in a building that must be repaired, not changed.

Drawings

Every drawing is at the scale on its bar. The numbers on the plan match the list beside it.

Ground floor plan of Reading room in the old baths, Rethymno, with numbered rooms and the line of section A

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1Ground floor planDrawing A-101, scale bar in metres

Rooms

  1. Reading room under the great dome
  2. Archive, in the old hot room
  3. Archive, in the old hot room
  4. Entrance porch
  5. Garden with the palm
South elevation of Reading room in the old baths, Rethymno, drawn in line

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2South elevationDrawing A-301, scale bar in metres
Painted axonometric of Reading room in the old baths, Rethymno, lit for a summer afternoon, with its shadows

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3AxonometricDrawing A-001
Site plan of Reading room in the old baths, Rethymno: roofs, shadows, contours and the boundary

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4Site planDrawing A-000, scale bar in metres

The project

A bath house is a machine for heat and water. A reading room needs neither, but it needs even light, still air and steady temperature, and the old building turns out to be good at all three.

We are opening the star-shaped skylights in the big dome again, one by one, with glass set in lime. They will light the long reading tables and let warm air out at the top. The two small domed rooms, with walls ninety centimetres thick and no windows, hold a steady 18 to 22 degrees: they will be the archive.

Every repair is in lime. Where the cement render of the 1960s comes off, we find the original plaster underneath, sometimes with the painted borders still visible. We record each one before we decide what to keep.

The survey model at 1:50, made before any work started.
Fig. 2The survey model at 1:50, made before any work started.
The reading room as it will be: long tables, and light from the top.
Fig. 3The reading room as it will be: long tables, and light from the top.

Sun, shade and air

Section A, drawing A-201. The sun is shown at noon on the longest and the shortest day, 78 and 31 degrees above the horizon in Chania; the blue dashes are the way the air moves.

Section through Reading room in the old baths, Rethymno, with the sun at noon in June and December and the paths of the air

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  1. The great dome: its star-shaped skylights, blocked since the 1950s, are being opened again to light the tables and let warm air out.

  2. The two small domed rooms, once the hot rooms, keep the archive at a steady 18 to 22 degrees.

  3. Walls ninety centimetres thick, repointed in lime. No cement anywhere.

  4. The porch is open on three sides: the reading room's front step.

Materials

Samples from the long table in the office. Each one comes from the site or from within a day's drive of it.

  • Rubble stone

    The walls, repointed in lime

  • Lime plaster

    Over the original, where it survives

  • Limestone

    Door frames and the floor of the porch

  • Terracotta

    Floor tiles in the reading room

Credits

Metopo

  • Sofia Daskalaki, project architect
  • Eleni Kalogeraki, partner in charge
  • Yiorgos Fragiadakis, site

With

  • Structure: Anthi Mavraki, civil engineer
  • Conservation of wall paintings: Kalliopi Mathioudaki
  • Builder: Rethymno Restoration Works, by public tender

Facts

  • Project MT 20.02, 2020 to 2026
  • Drawings, models and pictures by Metopo