Monday, July 26, 2010

The Scientific Folklore Hallucinations of Dimitris Pikionis




Been looking at the drawings of Dimitris Pikionis recently, like this perspective study for a garden entrance, which I actually used to visit as a kid. I never knew the garden and what you saw in it was so precisely planned, though I could sense that the place was slightly spooky, and as kids we were told that this was the work of an important architect.
Pikionis was what we would call a Critical Regionalist, which means he updated modernism with a heavy dose of folk.
His seemingly simple folk landscape arrangements, were carefully, if not hysterically studied.









or were just entirely revolutionary, like this pavilion for the expo of Neo Faliro in 1938

private home
monument
super famous path towards the Acropolis

the magnificent drawings have a life of their own, they form a strange world of scientific folklore hallucinations.
Like this house that seems to have become one with an out of focus tree.








another garden

another gate


the Pourris residence (1953) of the first garden drawing.













1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thx for uploading these lovely drawings. I am currently working on a paper about the designs of Pikionis en other 'regionalists'.