Charalambos Buras
Great work
Ed. Bee, page 335

Charalambos Buras was a separate world. An architect who wrote history in the field of restoration of monuments, a thinker of the entire historical fund of the country, he left the era as a multifaceted personality who worked for the benefit of the whole.

The new book published by Melissa illuminates in an oblique and innovative way, if not surprisingly, Charalambos Buras’ (1933-2016) dedication to everything that defined this dense universe, the stratigraphy of memory and traces.

The book Commentary Works was born without much effort when a folder with this very instruction was found among his papers. He gave this title. Finding among the remains of this life, full of activity, reflection and research, was identified by Cornelia Hatziaslani-Bura, who gradually found scattered other similar sketches that had a related act of birth.

These were the plans for the monuments that Charalambos Buras made during moments of rest or waiting, plans from which it is clear that he did not sit down. His erudition can be seen in what he left in the form of works, in the form of texts, in the form of a library. He was an avid reader. He loved literature.

What Charalambos Buras expressed, loftily and directly, is metabolized in these rough sketches, testifying to his tireless activity.

But this book includes not only the works of commentators, since the idea of ​​their presentation was expanded to include impressions, as well as photographic evidence. Thus, a corpus of design and photographic remnants was assembled, which in a different way reconstruct the personality of Charalambos Buras and, of course, his sharp powers of observation, his perfectionism, his design abilities (an art forgotten in the architectural world) .

Here we have the “artist” Buras in the shadow of the “public” Buras, as commented by his student Manolis Korres, who edited the publication, classifying and commenting on the material.

The publication is the result of the love of relatives, friends and colleagues. This is a counter gift, but for all of us readers and those who knew this rare man with his amazing equanimity, this is a way to get to know him deeper. And besides, it’s a reason to think about what constitutes the fabric of a scientist “dedicated to protecting the built past,” as Natalya Bura, who signed the chapter “Monument and Documentation. The legacy of H. Bura.

Much could be said about everything that makes up a complex personality like Charalambos Buras, but the most interesting element that emerges from this publishing initiative is the echo of the long journey. The texts, signed by Lazaros Kolonas, Manolis Korres, Natalia Buras, Alexandros Papageorgiou-Venetas, Miltiadis Poliviou, Alikis Tsirgyalou, and Dimitris Philippides, reflect aspects of the scientist’s lifelong devotion to his subject. His case was already transferred in 2017 on behalf of his family to the Benaki Museum and is being protected there. However, these “comments”, sketches and lines in notebooks and note fields, on adhesive paper and sketches of notes testify to the innermost thoughts of Charalambos Buras. Mind still. Dead hand.

Mind, spirit, ethos. That is, correct thinking, artistic expression, a solid scale of values. This triptych, founded in the sense of a humanist education, a humanist spirit, and a marvelous synthesis within this framework of Western and Greek thought (as if one approach were a natural offshoot of the other), perhaps underlies the understanding of those for whom they lived.

Will there be scientists for sites like Charalambos Buras in the future? Will this opportunity for intelligence, reflection, practical application and artistic value be within the Greek public space?

What Charalambos Buras expressed, sublime and straightforward, is metabolized in these rough sketches and unnecessary photographs. In its unusualness, in its ability to convey not only monuments and spiers, but also a certain atmosphere of space, in detailed contours, in tombstones, coats of arms, in caricatures, in architectural scenery, in decorative motifs, in the faces of saints, in citadels, in towers and in domes, in hymns, in porticos and fortifications, in houses, in enclosed courtyards and in all kinds of hearths, in all kinds of Greek altars, one can find divine inspiration.

This book, full of draft lines by Charalambos Buras, speaks to us no less than any other of his scientific books. It is an extension of the core of thought.