I climb it Philopappos Hill and I’m trying to imagine what the space will be like when it’s delivered redevelopment project until December 2025. As long as it’s a familiar situation. Morning, still the beginning of May, but there are already many tourists. They climb as if on a pilgrimage, choose paths, stand in the clearings for her photo. Acropolis.

Burial place of Dimitris Pikionis, next to Agios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris, stands inconspicuously to the side, at the beginning of the ascent. Notice of concession for 20 years State Real Estate Company To Municipality of Athens, which will undertake the restoration of a historic building that is in disrepair due to abandonment. In any case, this is an important event that contributes to the fact that the hills of Athens as a whole acquire a special cultural imprint and become an integral component of the timeless identity of the city.

The rest house is a building of the 1950s (1954-58), which summarizes and symbolizes the worldview of Pikionis. It is part of a mega project to shape the environment of the Acropolis and the hills in connection with the Athens Festival, one of the then initiatives of Konstantinos Karamanlis. The choice of Pikionis shows the scale of ambition. In the morphology of the Sanctuary, as well as in its integration into the landscape, one can easily discern that the structural element is silence, peace and contemplation. This fusion of tradition and philosophy in the Piconian dialect interacts with the essence of vernacular architecture, the Japanese worldview and the modern elliptical approach. Next to it, the Lumbardiaris configuration is a summary of timeless Hellenism.

All this is near us. The Municipality of Athens, having recently occupied other historic buildings (such as the Otonia National Printing House in Stadiou, or the Papaleonardo tenement house in Patision where Callas lived), simply announced that the use of the Holiday House would be the original one, as Pikioni thought: a place of rest and rest for visitors to Philopappos.

Climbing up to the monument of Philopappos, the visitor follows the drawings and configurations of Pikionis, a protected work, and understands that the philosophical dimension of matter, as it was originally conceived as a palimpsest of materials (stone, clay, marble, concrete), is a continuation and complement of the natural environment, the forest . Like all the hills of Athens, Muson or Philopappou hill was arid and dry in the 19th century.

The plantations that we see today are the product of different times, but mainly date back to the 50s, when, according to the design of Pikionis and the proposals of Karamanlis, the hill was fortified with trees and shrubs of the Attic flora. A cultural ecosystem was formed with elements of holiness and modest grandeur. Later, the plantings were fortified, and even earlier (already in 1900), the then Princess Sophia led the greening initiative in Athens. All these movements formed the landscape we know, which is based on the idea of ​​Pikionis.

Negligence

Yesterday’s walk to the monument to Philopappus confirmed the impression that the forest is slowly dying. Nature looks dehydrated and abandoned. The new study (a programmatic contract between the Ministry of Culture, the Municipality of Athens and the National Garden – Metropolitan Green S.A.) focused on infrastructure as well as forest development. The forest in Philopappou is the heart of every visitor’s experience, as well as a fundamental condition for the development and maintenance of all three historical hills (Muson, Pnika, Nymphos). It is striking that this ancient topography of Athens has not yet become part of the international identity of the city.

But it takes a lot of work to get there. Yesterday I found that the situation has improved (compared to 2020). There is no garbage anywhere, deforestation has occurred, droughts have decreased. But…

If I were to visit Athens for the first time without being obliged to know that a redevelopment project that would one day be implemented “works”, what impression would I have? Because even today there are many unforgivable negligences. Diseased pine trees, graffiti on ancient rocks and on newer buildings, broken signs (how many clues do we really need about the Dora Stratou Theatre?), rusty city furniture, dry grass… Even the Rest House is covered by a gazebo of smoldering coals, i.e. dry pine needles…