“Hello, Nella Golanda on the phone. Would you like to walk around Flisvos and I can talk to you about my work? Her voice on the other end of the line sounded cheerful, without a hint of vanity. He didn’t seek publicity. He never cared about such things and maybe that explains why. cityscape sculptor – as she herself defined – “leaving” yesterday at the age of 82, she is not so famous in our country, although she offered so much. One of them is the most convincing proof of the quality of her work: none of the public places she designed – in Faliro, Glyfada, Larissa – has ever been vandalized. This in itself speaks for itself.

Perhaps because the goal of each of her performances was “the humanization of the space that surrounds us”, as well as total art, that is, environments created solely so that we can experience them at any time of the day.

I first met her in person after that spontaneous phone call she made to me. She told me about her childhood. She was born in Athens in 1941 because her parents took refuge there when the city they lived in, Larisa, was bombed. As a child, he discovered a neoclassical building with yellow ocher opposite their house Epirus and Phyllis. It had a pediment and statues. She was fascinated by this sight and taught her to observe, to concentrate. He followed the same practice at the archaeological sites he visited as a child, now back in Thessaly. He entered ASKT and studied under the great engraver Kostas Grammatopoulos.

Engraving is not like painting, it does not have the same freedoms, it requires selflessness, discipline and submission to the plan. At first he “kicked”, then he fell in love with this technique and sculpted on it.

In 1970, she held her first exhibition, which coincidentally was her last in 2017, at the Marilena Liakopoulou Art Gallery in Athens, then located at the Hilton Hotel. Since then, Sepheris and Elitis have recognized her talent. She married Christos Kuzupis, who fully supported her. In 1983 he founded Floisvos, as complete work of art. Then came the Aksoni Theatre, an old dilapidated tram, transformed in her hands. She later intervened in her hometown of Larisa, where water was the main axis.

Her work has received awards at major exhibitions. architecture with final distinction at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. Recently, Nella Golanda was awarded the Archisearch Lifetime Achievement Award for overall contribution to architecture at the ESO 2022 Contemporary Design and Architecture Conference.