11. Getting out of a Dead End in Final Palatial Crete: Applying Space Syntax Analysis to the Casa dei Vani Aggiunti Progressivamente at Haghia Triada Quentin Letesson Santo Privitera Introduction Since the early 20 th century, Haghia Triada has represented a major source of interest for the study of the Cretan Late Bronze Age, thanks to its outstanding architectural record and variety of movable items, dated to the Neopalatial, Final Palatial and Postpalatial periods respectively (LM I through LM IIIC in the local sequence; La Rosa 2010). The abundant evidence of Neopalatial date has been reported from time to time since the early 20 th century, resulting into a thorough excavation report in 1977 (Halbherr et alii 1977); conversely, the evidence dated to the LM II through LM IIIC phases could only be properly evaluated after Vincenzo La Rosa began a new cycle of ieldwork at the site in 1977 (La Rosa 1977; 1979-80; 2010; Militello 1998; D’Agata 1999). Concerning the Final Palatial period, scholars of Minoan architecture have particularly emphasised the importance of Haghia Triada’s LM IIIA2-B monumental buildings within the framework of contemporary Crete. Along with those recently excavated at the not distant harbour town at Kommos, such buildings have long fuelled the debate on the ‘Mycenaeanising’ character of the island’s architecture in the aftermath of the fall of the second palaces (Hayden 1981; 1987; McEnroe 1979; 2010: 128-132; Darcque 1990; Driessen & Farnoux 1997). Accordingly, their layout, as well as technical features such as the masonry, door jambs and stone thresholds have been taken into account from time to time, enabling scholars to conclude that they “represent innovations without parallels in Crete, far different from the rest of the island” (Shaw & Shaw 2006: 874), but somewhat matching their counterparts on the Greek mainland (Hayden 1987; Cucuzza 1997). Yet, the debate on the local architecture has been limited to a few major complexes, such as Megaron ABCD and Stoa dell’Agora at Haghia Triada and Building P at Kommos. At the former site, the recent publication of a group of LM III buildings by one of the authors of this paper (Privitera 2015a), located in an area that was christened the Villaggio by the early excavators, will hopefully enable new meaningful evidence to be involved in the ongoing debate. In fact, that publication is essentially descriptive in character, being concerned, on the one hand, with retrieving from the unpublished archival documentation (including notebooks, sketches, and photographs) as many data as possible on the early excavations at Haghia Triada and, on the other, with presenting in detail the extant structures and inds in order to make sense of architectural forms and functions. Against such a backdrop, the present paper intends to supplement the available description of both structures and inds from the LM III Villaggio by focusing on the most monumental building located within its borders, the Casa dei Vani Aggiunti Progressivamente (Privitera 2015a: 35-83), in the light of data deriving from the application of space syntax analysis (Hillier 1996; 2014). The idea of selecting such a building as a case-study essentially draws on Letesson’s research concerning Neopalatial architecture (Letesson 2009; 2014), which conclusively showed how the arrangement and inner organisation of about seventy Minoan buildings betray the existence of a subjacent architectural set of principles or a ‘genotype’. It is our contention that employing such a methodology makes it possible to raise several interpretative questions, such as to what extent Casa VAP shows formal links with the Neopalatial building tradition and whether the cultural code/s that inspired its layout evolved over its long period of life (ca. 150-175 years, from early LM IIIA2 through late LM IIIB). It is worth stressing that this paper could not have been written, had its authors not met on the occasion of a cycle of Aegean conferences that Jan Driessen organised in the Fall 2015 at the Université catholique de Louvain. Therefore, it is a great pleasure for us both to thank him for inviting us to write this paper. It represents but a small token of gratitude to the Belgian Genius Loci of Aegean archaeology, Robert Lafineur, as a way to acknowledge the distinctively incisive role he has played by bringing together so many scholars of different academic background and nationality at the many Tables rondes egéennes he has organised for the past thirty years.