In the present project we have studied the tower-looking houses located in the northeastern parts of Lesvos.

 The high density of that area is connected with the economic development of the richest classes dwelling in the capital who owned Land there as well. The “Urban class” as it is known, following the arrangements made by the Ottoman Administration (the so called Tanzimat) begins trading in oil and products made from it, acquires land, constructs factories and generally promotes commerce, reaching its highest point during the 19th century. Around the capital and in large orchards, three-storey towers are built where families can spend their holidays in safety. A large number of them within the confines of the town, are the main home of their owners. The architecture of these buildings, with a kind of “introversion” on the first two floors, where there are only a few small openings, proves their fort-like character. This architecture is similar to that of the Medieval defense towers known to Greece and especially the Aegean, where the land of the landowners was protected, something continued by Turks who owned land after 1462.

  There are towers in the courtyard of the monasteries as well. On the island, there are two defense towers still standing, one Genoese and another by the church of the Archangel (Taxiarxis) just outside the village of Mandamados. The above mentioned “introversion” is reversed in the 18th century, when conditions in the Aegean change the degree of the threat.

 We now have the development of the third floor, a light wooden construction with its projecting parts (sahnicinia). In this way there is an ampler space for more comfortable living conditions of the family.

 It is reported that in 1894 there was a great number of towers on the southern and northern parts of the capital as well as on the peninsula of Amali including the two storey little towers (pirgelia).

 Studyimg the fourteen of the existing twenty eight towers in the region, we can easily notice the similar way they have been constructed – as far as the arrangement of space is concerned, that is a single space on the first and second floors and three or four rooms on the third- with the structural materials and the general morphology of the buildings. Rock from the island and the coast of Asia Minor forms the rough stonework and the carved stones of the walls and the doorframes of the openings. Also, the wooden parts, like the supporting beams, the “chatmades” and the door and the window frames are made of wood from the island.

 A very noticeable thing is the simple structure of the sides with few basic decorations found only on the wooden parts of the third floor with classic-like elements of the 19th century. From the few towers which have been dated and the corresponding morphology of the rest, we can conclude that they were built in the middle of the 19th century with the exception of the stone tower of Nianias, built in the 17th and the tower of Magnisalis built in the 15th century.