What material are the white houses in Greece?
What material are the white houses in Greece? In an effort to curb the disease, he ordered citizens to whitewash their homes. This might sound strange today, but the whitewash used to paint the houses contained limestone. Limestone is a powerful disinfectant, and not many others were in common use at the time.
What Colour are houses in Greece?
The regime at the time believed that recognizable colors would encourage patriotism and nationalism, and soon a law was passed requiring houses on the Greek islands to be painted blue and white.
Why is blue so important in Greece?
Blue became prevalent for doors and shutters as it was the cheapest paint color available to fishermen and sailors. The military dictatorship enforced the blue and white coloring of Greek island houses, inspired by notions of patriotism and Greek nationalism.
How do the buildings in Santorini stay so white?
The solution was to paint their houses light-colored by using whitewash which they made by mixing lime, water, and sea salt. As white color is a reflector of heat it worked perfectly to preserve the freshness and coolness of Greek homes.
Why are doors in Greece blue?
The blue also originated from a cleaning agent called Loulaki. It is a sort of talcum powder. This blue powder was found across every home in Greece. The mixture of Loulaki powder with lime produces the bright blue colour that we often see in Greek homes today.
Why is the water so blue in Santorini?
This glorious blue colour is due partly to the reflection of the blue skies and partly to the fact that the sea does not contain large quantities of solid matter such as plankton, mud and dust floating in the water. The way in which the Greek Sea sparkles is like no other the world over.
What is the white paint used in Greece?
Many visitors in Greece might have seen the white paint around the tree trunks. In the past when people didn't have all these agricultural concoctions to protect the trees from insects and bugs, they used a mix of slaked lime (calcium hydroxide), chalk (whiting) and water lime mixed with water as insect repellent.
What are Greek houses painted with?
People used a cleaning agent called loulaki (blue-coloured powder) to prepare the blue colour, which was easily available in every house. They would mix the powder with the limestone plaster and paint the house. Blue and white colours became permanent when a military government came in power in the year 1967.