ARCHITECTURE Dimitris Pikionis Texts FROM THE SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE PERIODICAL ZYGOS DEVOTED TO PIKIONIS Nos. 27-28. January-February 1958 [DIMITRIS PIKIONIS 1887 - 1968, Bastas-Plessas Publications; Athens 1994.] Nikos Alexiou We cannot but feel respect for the original contribution made by Professor D. Pikionis to the sphere of architecture and of the plastic arts in general. With his flawless theoretical and aesthetic training, with his constant research and his penetrating observation, he has given us new messages and directions for architecture in this country - architecture that was sunk in stagnation and the imitation of foreign models. The restless and creative personality of Pikionis has revised the plastic values of the past and has elevated the humanistic function of architecture to a predominant element - and that constitutes a landmark in the history of Greek architecture. *** Manolis Andronikos Pikionis, a restless creative artist himself gifted with an exuberant sensuousness, a sensitive receiver to the most fruitful message of our age but a man whose roots were firm in the land of' his birth, sought for an authentic solution at the most difficult moment in Greek architecture. The solution he sought to be a modern creative artist and at the same time to follow his own national tradition was not the easiest one. That could be said to be the lesson to be learned from Pikionis: how to subject oneself to the plastic language of the people in order, later, to subjugate it to one's own will. And this was done not with the weakness of language, but with the warmth of the heart, with a wealth of artistic experience and with the sharp sense of good taste, which is deeply moved by a detail. *** Eleni Vakalo Pikionis is not among those artists who can be judged only by their works. We will gain a much greater understanding of him from the changes he brought about, the revolution he represented, the values he introduced and the new atmosphere which was created after his appearance. The turn in Greek art in the direction of tradition, in the direction of its own self as that has come down to us moulded by nature and history, particularly in the field of architecture, is associated for us younger people (who never met Zachos, the other important figure) with the presence of Pikionis, with the elevation of his passion, with his soaring spirit, with his fanaticism even in the cause of what was, for him a love affair, which gave his ideals an almost material existence full of strengths and weaknesses and, precisely for that reason, full of vitality and able to exert its influence with the warmth of what struck one as a personal radiance. *** Thoukidides P. Valentis Pikionis, with his profound knowledge of Classical architecture and the Greek spirit, was the first person in Greece to sense the contemporary architectural movement so keenly - right from the start. Apart from the frigid and arid shell of functionality, this was thanks to his contemplativeness, sensitivity and outstanding plastic abilities. Those who were familiar with his enthusiasms - which were so strong as to be immediately infectious to his surroundings - his vacillations and his preferences in art also know well that they were the fruit of the profound research in which his restless spirit never ceased to engage. What conquered him in his maturity was his love for Greek vernacular architecture and, more generally, folk art. No one has yet been able to see Greek vernacular architecture as Pikionis saw and interpreted it in his attempt to give his forms a local and contemporary nature. *** P. Vasileiadis Dimitris Pikionis is a great teacher. He starts from matter and reaches as far as a philosophical view of life, revealing metaphysical values in architecture. His teaching -- for those who have understood it -- is an intellectual revelation, and generations of architects have been enlightened by his spirituality and his dedication to the Greek tradition, in his attempt to transform it into contemporary reality. *** Ilias Venezis Throughout his life, Pikionis was a functional figure in the world of art in Greece. Over all the years which passed, from the time when I first met him as a young man in the circle of Fotis Kontoglou to the recent years when we worked together in the movement to preserve the Greek landscape, he was the same man: he had the same unwavering faith in beauty, in the Greek ideal, in the power of the spirit. His face always bore the expression of an apostle, of an anchorite. I do not know many people in this country who have devoted their lives to ideas and to beauty as Pikionis has done. *** K.A. Doxiadis ...Throughout all those years, and even today, when I have the opportunity and the honour to work with Pikionis, my opinion has always been that Pikionis is the same man I first saw: a man of contemplation, a man whose concern was to create real architecture, a man who made it his aim to help rather people understand the absolute need to devote themselves, with respect to the effort to create a new architecture, and in particular a new Greek architecture. *** Stratis Doukas .... His philosophical mind investigates everything, using, as it were, the faculties of sight and hearing in the search to perceive the unity scattered through space and time. His journey through forms, ideas, personalities and things has been long, wearisome and painful; and the austere exercises of a secret soul have kept vigilant and alert all his intuitive forces. He himself determined the purpose and significance of this spiritual progress at its start: "You will have no need to watch over your work, which may remain for ever invisible, in the secret depths of your soul. Why should it matter whether people see it, when God himself is looking after it? Does a mother need anyone else to watch over her child? You will feel only that you must do useful work - can you ask for anything more? You will feel that you have prepared for those who will follow you the higher reality you desired." And yet -- in the fullness of time -- public recognition has greeted his work, and if his presence is still not ubiquitous, it will be understood and bear fruit at some point in the future. *** Dimitris Evangelidis With his decorative inclination (a significant feature of folk art), with his understanding of the appeal in the form and materials of that technique -- of the simple stone of the Greek mountains, of dry stone and brick-- and with his decorative games, Pikionis has revived an authentically artistic trend in art. Working always on the basis of the expediency of form and space, which is the starting-point for folk art he has brought closer to our senses the appealing picturesqueness of spatial variety, of masses and of planes, and he has enhanced shape, line and colour with nobility and purity. Consequently, this naive romanticism for the old, this love for the pure and spontaneous feeling which has not been distorted by counterfeit classicism and the tasteless, shallow mania for uniformity, is an attempt to return to the archegonal wellspring of artistic joy in good, authentic materials, in the simple form which brings out those materials, in the uncorrupted taste which creates without affectation and pretension. It is so difficult to avoid affectation and false external imitation that only true artists dare sail out on to the waters of this artistic adventure and bring home positive results. We can see this in the work of Pikionis, who, as an authentic artist with a profound sense of responsibility, has provided us with samples of the sort of solution which could be said to constitute a landmark in the evolution of contemporary Greek art. *** Marinos Kalligas It is questionable whether any other creative artist in Greece in our day has approached the universal Greek values in such a conscious and responsible manner, and has transmuted them into creative features so general that they allow his mark to remain indelibly on all the places through which he happened to pass. His works are the implementation of his thought in practice. Works which present themselves with such a sense of responsibility as that of Pikionis, works which have been so thoroughly worked out in the intellect and which have so much to give as pure and rich products of the spirit, are works which bear the stamp of truth: that is very simple, and also very important. *** Patroklos Karantinos In the short history of the School of Architecture, and in general of artistic and architectural activity in Greece, Pikionis stands out as a distinct and unique personality. This sensitive receiver of everything worthwhile in artistic creation, this insatiable student and admirer of the beautiful, has for years been making noble and agonising efforts to discover a true and creative path forward. *** Fotis Kontoglou The presence of Pikionis amongst those of us who involve ourselves with the arts and intellectual matters is of great importance. His natural delicacy, his thoughtful sensitivity, his technical wisdom, his poetic flair and his humility are features which I believe are to be found in no other Greek; nor does any other Greek possess the special tone of this most pleasant of men. Above all, his tone is a moral tone. *** A. Kontopoulos It would be difficult today -- in this period of restless and rapid revision -- to comprehend the breadth of the contribution, which Pikionis has made to the revitalisation of our artistic education. As a thinker who conducts profound research, as a man of sensitive and prophetic insight, he has always known how to receive and anticipate changes on the international level with exactness and rightness of judgement. It is no exaggeration to say that the broad movement which has been the history of inquiry worldwide for the last half-century has been in Greece, the history of this wise thinker. He conveyed the restless messages of our age. His thinking has revealed to us the continuity of the human spirit, which creates and supports cultures -- the line which runs from the ancient world to Cézanne. We, the generation that experienced the great and disorienting misunderstanding of the inter-War period, are familiar with the truth inherent in the teachings of Pikionis. Suspiciously and restlessly, we discovered his truth, with painful happiness -- we rejected a world of mistaken belief and simultaneously greeted with joy the spiritual gifts he brought: gifts, which led us towards a brightly lit portal... *** K. Loukopoulos Pikionis' faith in the power of the Greek race is not an arid grammatical form. As a truly creative artist, he seeks in the vigilant soul of the people its pure plastic language and, with rare strength, adopts it to the circumstances of our age. Pikionis recently created next to the Acropolis a refuge of familiarity, which reminds us --in his marvellous pavilion-- that real architecture, like any other art worthy of its name, has the power to dominate our souls. By putting into effect there an organic and internal correspondence between environment and construction, between the whole and the parts, Pikionis shows that he knows how to stand with discretion and modesty, with wisdom, knowledge and sensitivity, before the very ancient world, revealing to us the measure of its living soul -- the measure by which we judge it and by which we, too, shall be judged. *** Yannis Moralis Pikionis is one of the few Greeks who has attempted, and is still attempting, to link us to those values of the Greek tradition, which are shared with all the great civilisations and are common to all authentic works of contemporary art. As an architect, he is a thinker whose love for Greek folk art, -which is precisely where he identifies the living continuation of a great tradition -- has never prevented him from conceiving with his sensitivity and poetic disposition or from revealing to us the more profound meaning of human creations made with faith and love. The influence of Pikionis on contemporary Greek art is very important. Apart from the students whom as a teacher in the School of Architecture he has initiated into art, all we painters and sculptors owe him a great debt. *** Yorgos Bouzianis I had the impression that he was holding seeds in his palm and dropping them as he walked across the earth, and that he knew that one-day they would bear fruit. When we separated on his return to Greece, he was an outstanding person, a distinct and entirely spiritual personality whose depths could not be plumbed as they reached into the inconceivable. I was nostalgic for him: I missed him. We met again later in Greece, and it was as if that former time were continued; but now everything struck me as plainer, more conscious and more positive. Pikionis is a man who knows what he was pursuing, who achieved what he believed, who has continued - and who will continue to do what he believes. He is like a spirit rushing through the air, seeing all and noting all and regulating all and constantly conveying it to us. He is in a state of constant renewal: no sooner has one thing ripened, than he begins on something else - just as Nature does. Pikionis is a figure of great profundity who has walked in our streets and dropped the seeds which are sure to bring forth fruit. *** Pavlos Mylonas Pikionis is not just a 'great teacher' in terms of his purely educational work. Nurtured on Greece and Byzantium, in Paris and Munich, he is a man of wisdom who casts light all about him. His plastic work -- in architecture and in painting -holds a very high position to my eye. This is work of sensitivity, of high moral stature, of love and piety. It is the line of a route, and it is a gift. Long life, then, to the 'teacher'- the 'teacher of the Greeks', I would call him. May he live for a thousand years, and may he bestow other gifts on as long as he lives *** Stratis Myrivilis Among Pikionis' recent creative work, I would like to single out for praise his landscaping project on Philopappus Hill and the access paths to the Acropolis -- a truly poetic piece of work. I have often had the opportunity to act as guide there to foreign authors who were in Athens as the city's guests or were merely passing through. And their admiring exclamations when I took them to this superb viewpoint over the Acropolis and Athens, which Pikionis created with such wisdom, such understanding and such inspiration, are always source of pride to me. May God enlighten the authorities in this country to make full use of the outstanding qualities of this man in developing other sacred places handed down to us by eternal Greece --- places which are unique for all humanity. *** I.M. Panayiptopoulos The road which leads to the Philopappus monument and the reconstitution of St Demetrius 'Loumbardiaris' are among Pikionis' most beautiful creations. There one can see how an ascetic and visionary was able to express a contemplative ideal, using stone and shattered tiles with spirit and mind together. This is a wonderful moment in Greek history. Through a life of meditation and study, Pikionis has succeeded in linking in indissoluble unity the inner meaning of architecture -- that is, the meaning of art -- and the Greek tradition, and in doing so not statically but conceived as evolution and as a reply to the fierce demands of modern times. Pikionis is the most aesthetic figure in Greek architecture. *** Dimitris Tripodakis Without doubt, Pikionis is the most characteristically Greek architectural personality of the last fifty years. He is a sensitive, wise and tireless master craftsman, permeated with whatever is Greek, who has striven to give contemporary Greek architecture its most convincing and true expression. He is a teacher of naturally noble and simple ways, of a thoughtful and gentile style, who with uncompromising and firm faith first refused to support and teach the conventional and then gave Greek architects a new credo. *** Yannis Tsarouchis With the end of neo-Classicism, Greece entered a period of architectural chaos, or what might otherwise be called the dark ages of architecture. Pikionis made his appearance at precisely this time, and an awareness of that chaos was deeply inscribed on his consciousness. He made it his purpose to confront this impasse in Greek architectural aesthetics, by means of his great talent and with his profound learning. He tried various approaches, experimenting with courage and sincerity. His eye, which always sees correctly, often saw a very long way. He taught young people to be free and genuine (if they wanted to be so, of course), and he revealed unknown and beautiful worlds. What is of the greatest importance is that with his toil, his errors, his hesitations, his enthusiasm, his confident advances and his turnings back, he managed to clear a pathway, which leads out of the stifling impasse. That pathway, made with personal experience and acute intuition, does not lead to easy formulas, as some dissidents and many of his supporters appear to believe. It is there for those who want to forge ahead under their own power and elevate their art. The most valuable practical documentation of his honest and free march towards purity ---unprecedented in Greece-- is to be found in his countless drawings, produced as architectural designs, works of art or examples of decoration. I think there are sufficient mature people in this country to appreciate and love those drawings. Without doubt, they should be exhibited one day. Even better, the most important of them could be published, if this is possible. That would be the best way of saluting a man of Pikionis' value and at the same time it would be a marvellous manner of acquainting us better with the important contribution, which he has made to aesthetic and intellectual affairs. One of the large organisations or foundations ought to undertake this task.