To the ‘Hero of Heroes’: Dimitris Pikionis and the landscaping of the Velissariou Memorial

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.