Dimitris Pikionis and the Poetry of Place

A Skiathos Exhibition Rediscovers the Architect Who Reshaped How We Walk Through Athens

An evocative caller accumulation connected Skiathos explores the beingness and enactment of Dimitris Pikionis, the modernist designer whose delicate designs for the Acropolis scenery turned walking into a contemplative creation form.

On a quiescent hillside supra the larboard of Skiathos, the courtyards of the Monastery of the Annunciation are filled with the odor of conifer and the dependable of cicadas. Inside, an accumulation invites visitors to rediscover the enactment of Dimitris Pikionis (1887–1968), the designer whose imaginativeness changed the mode Greece experiences its astir ineffable spaces.

Dimitris Pikionis photographed by Pavlos Mylonas, courtesy of the Benaki Museum

‘Dimitris Pikionis: Shape and Form’, organised by the Benaki Museum in collaboration with the Cultural Association of Skiathos, runs until 15 October. It traces the beingness of a antheral who believed that architecture should beryllium much than relation and form. For Pikionis, buildings and landscapes were carriers of memory, past and emotion – what helium called a “sentimental topography.” This is the essence of what galore present picture arsenic the “poetry of place”: a mode of designing that allows a tract to uncover its ain bushed and communicative alternatively than imposing an outer bid upon it.

and is located successful the northeast of Skiathos island, The Monastery of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary is hosting the accumulation

Born successful Piraeus to a household of Chian descent, Pikionis came of property astatine a clip erstwhile Athens was inactive uncovering its individuality arsenic a superior city. Trained arsenic a civilian engineer, helium soon turned to painting, studying nether Konstantinos Parthenis and aboriginal travelling to Munich and Paris. At the École des Beaux-Arts helium encountered Cézanne, Klee and Rodin, whose enactment taught him that plan could beryllium affectional arsenic good arsenic rational. When helium returned to Athens, helium brought with him a condemnation that architecture should prosecute with history, story and place.

“The cosmopolitan tone had to beryllium coupled with the tone of nationhood.”

– Dimitris Pikionis

His aboriginal works reflected the cleanable lines and functional clarity of the modern movement, but Pikionis soon felt the request for thing deeper. “The cosmopolitan tone had to beryllium coupled with the tone of nationhood,” helium aboriginal said, describing the infinitesimal helium turned towards Greece’s ain vernacular traditions for inspiration. From this constituent forward, his enactment sought to reconcile modernity with representation – a synthesis that would travel to specify his astir important project.

Between 1954 and 1957, Pikionis undertook the landscaping of the Acropolis and Philopappou Hill, creating a web of stone-paved paths that contiguous consciousness arsenic though they person ever been there. Working intimately with section craftsmen and students, helium utilized marble fragments, salvaged rubble and stones recovered connected tract to make routes that travel the earthy contours of the hills. Rather than designing each item connected paper, helium allowed overmuch of the enactment to beryllium resolved successful the field, improvising arsenic the paths took shape.

Considered to beryllium Pikionis’s foremost and astir unsocial achievementL: The landscaping task for the Acropolis and Philopappos Hill (1954 – 1958), courtesy of Benaki Museum

The effect is little a operation than a journey. Visitors find themselves pausing astatine chromatic benches, climbing gentle inclines, and discovering framed views of the Parthenon. The British historiographer Kenneth Frampton erstwhile wrote of his archetypal locomotion done the site: “I felt the astir literal question of the crushed arsenic my framework was drawn by the tactile absorption of the paving, up and down the undulating labyrinth of the terrain.”

“I felt the astir literal question of the crushed arsenic my framework was drawn by the tactile absorption of the paving.”

– Kenneth Frampton

The Skiathos accumulation brings unneurotic drawings, models and paintings that amusement the scope of Pikionis’s work: schools and houses from the 1920s and 30s, his visionary plans for Delphi, the children’s plot successful Filothei, and of people his celebrated Acropolis landscaping. Together they uncover an designer who refused to dainty architecture arsenic a neutral backdrop. For him, each task was a dialog with its setting.

Head of Hygeia: From the ‘Antiquity’ series, courtesy of the Benaki Museum

Caryatid: From the ‘Antiquity’ series, courtesy of the Benaki Museum

Courtesy of the Benaki Museum

PIkionis, Sketch for Aixoni Settlement, Glyfada, 1953-55 (not realised), Courtesy of the Benaki Museum

The Feast of St Nicholas successful Aegina: From the ‘Vernacular’ series, courtesy of the Benaki Museum

There is simply a peculiar resonance successful showing Pikionis’s enactment astatine Evangelistria Monastery, wherever the archetypal Greek emblem was sewn and raised during the War of Independence. The mounting reminds visitors that for Pikionis, architecture was ever tied to the tone of the federation – not done nostalgic imitation, but done a surviving speech with history.

At a clip erstwhile cities are processing faster than ever and taste representation is easy erased, Pikionis feels strikingly relevant. His respect for context, his reuse of materials, and his collaboration with craftsmen each expect today’s ideas of sustainable, place-sensitive design. Later this year, the Benaki Museum successful Athens volition big a large accumulation titled Dimitris Pikionis: An Aesthetic Topography, focusing connected his enactment connected the Acropolis. It volition springiness visitors different accidental to prosecute with a assemblage of enactment that inactive has overmuch to thatch astir however we unrecorded with the past portion gathering for the future.

Elementary school, Pefkakia, Lycabettus, 1932, courtesy of Benaki Museum

Acropolis-Philopappou landscaping, Resting spot and Church of Agios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris, 1954-54, courtesy of the Benaki Museum

To locomotion a way by Pikionis is to acquisition architecture arsenic thing that speaks, guiding you mildly portion revealing what was ever there. It is this quality to alteration a locomotion into an enactment of seeing and remembering that makes his enactment genuinely the poesy of place. 

Exhibition Details:

Dimitris Pikionis: Shape and Form
Where: Holy Monastery of the Annunciation (Evangelistria), Skiathos Island, Greece
When: Until 15 October 2025
Organisers: Benaki Museum and the Cultural Association of Skiathos
More Information: www.benaki.org

Images courtesy of the Benaki Museum

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