(G2)
20-06-2025
Dear second garden,
The summer weather is starting to catch up on my longing for it. Suddenly everything is more than spring green, which went really fast. Maybe because a lot of time and growth is happening while I hide at an office most of the day.
I've been thinking about my spring and summer last year since it was particularly cute and outdoorsy. I spent some weeks in June in Athens, walking on the paths of Dimitris Pikioni on Philopappos' Hill, and today I thought of the dry smell of olives and cypress, feeling the intense heat of the mid-day sun and mostly the beauty of the collaged stone paths leading my way around the hill.
Philopappos' Hill is one of the seven hills that constitute Athens, named after Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappos, a consul and administrator under the Roman emperor Hadrian. Between 1954 and 1957, the area was redeveloped by the architect and planner Dimitris Pikionis with the ambition to create linking pathways to the Acropolis. The project had a low budget, and no resource for paper plans, so the constructions were done without preplanning. Pikionis made the whole archeological area around Acropolis, Philopappos' Hill and St. Demetrius Loumbardiaris together with his students and local stoneworkers using local stones and the remains of the ancient habitations which were revealed on site. The workers did everything basically by hand, using pitching chisels and a variety of pointed chisels. The pavement of Philopappos' Hill was laid stone by stone.
Every student and stoneworker made their own small patterns creating a very coherent area of marble, brick, stones and ancient volute capitals making the old traditions of 'spolia' modern again. Pikionis himself was mostly focused on the planting of trees and wild domestic vegetations like olive trees and plants that the ancient people used in their temples such as pomegranate, laurel or myrtle trees. I found it peculiar that this was his main focus, but the attention shows in a caring way.
As smaller interventions around the area, Pikionis made marble benches - a bit more controlled but still collaged like the pathways, framing nature. Several of the benches are semicircular, inspired by ancient linear compositions. One of the benches is arched but the arch is sectioned in the end by a huge tree. He could have placed the bench anywhere else. Maybe it was a very special view from that bench. Other benches are facing the view of the Acropolis on top of the hill, while others are located on the other side of the hill, kind of looking away from the city, on the side of the hill where his pathways don't even go. The bench here faces south and the white marble is burning hot, rejecting me so that I can only look at it. I loved investigating this new landscape, and I do also have a fascination (obsession??) with stones.
For now, I will do with the red brick of Copenhagen and that is also okay with me, but I would love to spend a day in the dry smell of cypress trees discovering marble figures in the pavement again soon.
Summer kisses and Greek dreams,
Anne
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