Why are roofs blue in Greece?

The blue used for Greek island homes was made from a mixture of limestone and a cleaning product called “loulaki,” which was a kind of blue talcum powder most islanders had readily available at home. Therefore, blue paint was a very easy color for them to make.



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The second story tells that some superstitious people believe that restless souls do not want to fly to heaven but seek to penetrate the earth into houses. That is why Santorini blue roofs are designed to disorient evil spirits, let them think that this is the sky, get confused, and fly away.

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The widespread use also emanates from an ancient belief that the sky blue shade of turquoise has the power to keep evil away. It is believed that the radiation of the colour composes an invisible shield which prevents the approach of bad spirits.

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During the colonel's dictatorship from 1967 to 1974, the junta established by Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos and Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos mandated blue and white as standard colors for Cycladic homes. This was an attempt to boost patriotism and reflected Greek national pride.

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Greek philosophers thought in terms not of three, but of four, basic colors: black, red, yellow and white: yet little or no attention has been paid to this conception as a system of thought.

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Yellow signifies “sadness” in Greece's culture and “jealousy” in France's culture.

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It mainly had to do with construction reasons. Domes in general are one of the first structural forms humans worked with in stone architecture. Spherical domes are used in Greece from appx. 5,800 BC.

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At the beginning of the 20th century, during the war, serious deceases, like cholera, plagued the Greek islands. Whitewash is a cheap, disinfectant material that was used regularly to limit the contagion. Back to that era, it was probably the most effective or even the only medium available for disinfection.

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