Koule, Florina: An Ottoman Defensive-Residential Tower in Greece
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Greece
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Ottoman
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Tower
History
Koule, Florina, is an Ottoman defensive-residential tower in Greece, built under the rule of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, although construction may have begun in the late eighteenth century. It formed part of a wider Balkan tradition in which wealthy residents built fortified towers beside their principal houses. The monument was declared a cultural monument in 1985.
Remains
The tower stands in central Florina on Tagmatarchis Fouledakis Street, within the grounds of the Third Gymnasium, a lower-secondary school. It has a square plan and survives as a ruin, with only the lower section remaining. The surviving structure reaches 4.75 metres in height and measures 6.80 by 6.82 metres externally. Its walls are between 0.98 and 1.04 metres thick, with concealed horizontal timber frames set at intervals of about 3 metres.
The entrance retains a horizontal wooden supporting beam and a semicircular brick arch that becomes pointed on its interior side. A stone staircase leads upward through the structure. The tower originally ended in a brick dome covered with Turkish roof tiles, while the surviving roof covering is made of stone slabs. Its square form and close relationship to a principal residence reflect the defensive-residential towers built by wealthy inhabitants across many parts of the Balkans during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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