Our trip to Cyprus was a journey of thought-provocation and education, immersing us in culture, history, politics, and architecture. Without physically visiting this place, I doubt I would have ever fully grasped the immense impact of its ruptured political landscape. Walking through the streets of Nicosia, the last divided capital in Europe, brought history to life in a way no textbook ever could. 

We visited incredible museums like the Leventis National Museum, where the story of Nicosia unfolded through diary entries, archival footage, and interactive exhibits, allowing us to engage deeply with the city’s layered past. The State Gallery of Contemporary Art, with its exhibition ‘Cyprus 1974,’ exposed the raw emotional aftermath of division, giving us a more personal perspective on events that shaped the island. 

These experiences are invaluable to my architectural studies. The benefits of field trips like this are not just about observation – they are about immersion. Through walking tours exploring contested spaces, and physically entering buildings, I could engage with the architecture not just as an aesthetic or functional discipline but as a deeply political and cultural one. The experience deepened my grasp of architectural design theory, expanding my focus beyond form and materiality to memory, identity, and resilience in architecture. 

The most unforgettable moments came from the walking tour of the UN Green Line buffer zone in central Nicosia and our visit to Famagusta, with our incredible tour guide. Traversing the buffer zone, we saw firsthand the stark reality of a city divided – abandoned buildings, barbed wire, and military outposts standing as silent witnesses to decades of conflict. In Famagusta, the experience was equally striking. The haunting beauty of cathedral ruins repurposed as mosques spoke to the resilience and adaptability of architecture, while entire districts of abandoned buildings remained frozen in time, untouched since the war. These spaces told stories of both survival and loss, reinforcing how architecture becomes a testament to history, politics, and human endurance. 

Listening to Murray Fraser explain the purpose of our course to the students of Cyprus University, aided my understanding of the idea he discussed ‘research through design’, and made me think about how crucial it is to witness places with complex social interactions, and understand these through the spaces they are staged in. 

Cyprus, with its beauty and its scars, has left an imprint on my architectural thinking. It has reminded me that buildings are more than structures. As I returned to my projects, I carried with me not just sketches and notes, but a renewed awareness of architecture’s role in the world, and my role within it. 
 
In my third year of the Architecture MSci course, the subject of my History and Theory essay centred around a theory I have termed ‘Future Country Theory’, which poses that all current active and dormant succession movements around the globe will gain fruition, and the global landscape will see the births of many more newly recognised countries. Given the freedom of the subject, visiting Cyprus easily fell into being an ideal case study. This was the obvious compatible module, however, my design work, which has been flirting with the idea of building for protests while reducing rioting and aggression in urban environments fits as well. 

Reflecting on my past trips with the Architecture MSci course, these trips have been instrumental in shaping my approach to design. Even when an experience wasn’t directly applicable to a project, the knowledge and perspectives gained always found their way back into my work. These trips have expanded my imagination, deepened my analytical skills, and, most importantly, reinforced my understanding that architecture does not exist in a vacuum – it is shaped by, and shapes the world around it.  

This article contains notes by Nadia Kwiecinska and Ruben Alexander, reflecting their experiences and individual insights from their Cyprus field trip in Spring 2025.Â