Publication
This essay discusses the final commission of Dimitris Pikionis, an architect known for his critical stance on modern architecture. Pikionis became renowned outside Greece for two landscape projects: the interventions in the Acropolis and the Filothei Garden for Children. Spanning the years 1961 to 1963, he embarked on a journey to the island of Euboea and supervised a third project of landscape architecture: the interventions for the Memorial of Major Ioannis Velissariou, a fallen hero of the Balkan Wars. Despite its lesser-known status, this project stands as a representative example of Pikionis’s most prolific period. The essay addresses this gap in scholarship by utilizing archival research, on-site documentation and interviews with Pikionis’s collaborators. It offers an extensive account of the interventions, followed by a critical assessment. This serves a dual purpose: first, to explore the intellectual underpinnings that influenced the interventions, and second, to underscore their contemporary relevance.