Scythian pagan rituals may have informed this rarely seen set of monumental sculptures, cast using experimental concrete techniques. In 1964, acclaimed British sculptor William Mitchell created a magnificent work of art for the British Cement Association in Wexham Springs, Buckinghamshire. Seeing photos of that sculpture on the internet for the first time was somewhat unsettling… Read More
London’s fantastical Victorian bestiary of prehistoric creatures remains awe inspiring despite its age A few years ago, I spent a morning in south London, looking for the beautiful remains of Crystal Palace – one of the grand feats of engineering that epitomised the Victorian era. Joseph Paxton, the renowned Victorian gardener and architect, was behind… Read More
Aluminium of Greece (AL) was launched in 1960 as a joint venture between the government of Greece and an industrial conglomerate led by the historic French firm Pechiney, a world leader in aluminium manufacturing. As a result, the first aluminium production facility in the country opened on the northern coast of the Corinthian Gulf in… Read More
Agios Dimitrios, (often referred to with its pre-1928 name, Brahami) is one of the most densely populated suburbs of Athens – a density that’s comparable to that of Cairo, or Seoul. The typical expedience and maladministration that characterised post-war Greece has left its indelible mark in the suburb’s architecture: its arbitrarily arranged streets define pocket… Read More
In the sunlit Arcadian plain close to the ancient city of Mantineia in Greece, there’s a church like no other. It’s an astonishing melange of styles, combining elements of Classical, Byzantine and Modern architecture, and yet remaining true to none. Its construction is the life’s work of architect and iconographer Kostas Papatheodorou, who has delivered… Read More
go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie Spartan epitaph at Thermopylae Modernist austerity meets Spartan rigour in a Greek memorial cemetery like no other The new city of Sparta was founded in 1834 at the behest of Otto, the Bavarian prince who became the first King of… Read More
