The Exedra of Goreme OAM: an ocean of points to be explored
Marco Carpiceci, Carlo Inglese, Fabio Colonnese
Abstract From 2013 the research unit of Rome has been developing the architectural survey of the Open Air Museum of Goreme in Cappadocia. After examining individual rock-cut complexes, this unit is currently focusing on the spatial and functional relationships of homogeneous structures. This paper deals with a specific area located in the southern part of the Museum: it is a semicircular rock cliff that separates the inhabited area from the plateau. This sort of natural exedra is characterized by the presence of several artificial cavities, including churches, refectories and service areas which by virtue of their typological variety, constitute autonomous groups and form a sort of urban settlement. The churches are the settlements’ key elements around which communities built their meeting and shelter facilities. In many cases the identification of the functions and connections along the paths allows to mark sharp separations between the groups. This is the case of Cariali Kilise, the Karanlik Kilise and S.Onofrio; in other cases, such as the Pantocrator Kilise and Malta Hacli Kilise, their widespread distribution tempers this separation. The tufa surface of the exedra has been surveyed through laser scans assembled into a single point cloud. The texture of the painted surfaces has been further surveyed by recording the reflectance value during the night time in order to prevent the chiaroscuro data distortion caused by sunlight variations. Downstream of the surveying activities, the group is working on specific representations, such as plants for contour lines and sections for equidistant plane curves. This kind of representations is particularly effective for the rock-cut habitat, because it allows an objective reading and clearly shows the constructive and distribution relations among the rooms separated by meters of rock.
