LouKouM, in a true sense, has opened our appetite. The bold, robust buildings, constructed before the 1930s, were renovated with respect to tradition, slightly broken, by no means fake, with playfulness, lots of humor and simple materials, mostly found on the island. The past was enhanced with a sense of modern audacity, rather than fidelity. However, hardly anything was changed, with the exception of a window that was opened on the north side —an architectural heresy, which allows a view of Ano Syros— and a few square meters added here and there that made space for bathrooms.
George, the engineer and his assistant, Kantiana, supervised the project. Piero was head of the construction. The entire project would never be the same without the hands of our exceptionally skilled workers: Kyrios Pavlos, Isidoros, Michalis, Fifis with his father, Andreas and his men, Memis and the entire family, Thanasis and Yannis. We architects could never really express enough gratitude to our accomplices, the artisans.
The interior of each house was turned into a “cabinet of curiosities”, dedicated to the “Modest Arts”: Lithographs, ceramic cicadas, souvenirs, ship models, posters, old toys, religious offerings, globes, sea shells and mirrors from the flea markets of Athens and Paris and bazaars we visited from our travels. There is a contrapuntal relation between these objects and the works of contemporary art, which we happen to love very much.
