We were all quite excited when IE submitted our permit application in Syros in June 2023. In actual fact, he just uploaded it from the comfort of his Agia Paraskevi office, but it sounds more romantic to mention Syros. It had taken over a year to get to this point, with a lot of back and forth on designs, and trying to land lightly on the land. We agree with IE that we were willing to be daring with the ‘openings’, by which he meant the large windows and full panel doors. Very non-traditional, as the permitted windows are a mere 1.2m width. Sounds awful perhaps, but it’s amazing how he approached the rest of the design aesthetic….native rough cut stone, low profile, tucked into the landscape and so on. Now that all that design fun was had, we were about to embark on what may turn out to be the grandest challenge, at least I hope so, I hope this epic journey doesn’t increase in epic-ness with time.
We have been under no illusions as to the challenge we were taking on. Almost everyone who heard what we were trying to do thought we were crazy, sometimes in a good way even admiring, but still, crazy. We resigned ourselves early on that we would embrace the reality and set out our expectations very low, low enough to trip over. The spectacular property we bought came with a few, shall we say, special issues. Poor IE, we pretty much did everything he told us to avoid. However, we approached it with eyes wide open and, after all, the complications were also reflected in the very low price.
- Situated in a designated ancient village (not traditional…ancient. Literally, ancient, as in ~500 BC)
- Adjacent to a stream, in fact it forms part of the property boundary. Bam, had to submit a hydrology analysis and report to the relevant Department in Syros.
- Having Agios Ioannis located with 200 m means the church has to approve our design.
- Need to build an road before construction can begin, short albeit critical. No one too interested in doing this and I can’t say I blame them, after all, the permit could take a years, or at least a life time, and the owners may get bored or broke and never build. Very practical people, these people. Not, however, very efficient in the department of bureaucracy.
- Power line will need to be relocated.
- Greatest risk of all…The Cycladic Architectural Council had to review and approve IE’s design. He anticipated a challenge, even to have to travel to Syros to present his vision in person.
The Archaeology
After much poking by Ioannis, suddenly or so it seemed, Ms Athenian Chief Archaeologist shows up on Andros. We supply a contractor, in the form of Niko P who shows up with a backhoe and crew to dig. Backhoe? Not the most delicate of archaeological excavations. I wish I could have been there. Almost as good, we had several messages with Ioannis E who sent texts and photos and imagine our surprise and disbelief when he sends a photo of what appears to be a pot. What?? A find? An artifact? No one had ever found anything above the road in that part of Paleopolis, were we actually going to have the bad luck of finding an artifact? Unanimous opinion, possibly including from Ms Athenian Chief Archaeologist, was that it was maybe 100 years old. Nonetheless! Just to be safe, she has ordered a further investigation, to hand dig and dust and what not in certain specified (and probably totally random) locations.
This was back in mid November. We are still awaiting the formal written version of this determination. Yes, in mid March. Ioannis has been contacting her regularly since then, and I suspect this all got rather heated as it seemed she may have hung up on him. He said she actually phoned back to apologize, and was going to try to ‘expedite’ the situation. This was three weeks ago. Sigh. Just this week he called her again and she told him she was merely awaiting signatures. I wish I could see what these people did all day. It is incredible they don’t actually lose the files, given they sit on them for months and years.
This process all seemed rather ludicrously over the top. We had spoken with at least two neighbours who had already had archaeology test pits on their properties which were found to be resoundingly negative. I asked Niko P how often was the archaeology inspection so detailed, even going so far as to order additional digs? Never! he said. This has never happened to him before, it is unprecedented, it is ridiculous etc and etc. What on earth is going on, then, I asked? Which triggered a long rapid-fire-Greek story about Mykonos mafia and archaeologist getting beat up in Athens and the archaeologist union striking all summer. Not a joke, as it turns out. What fabulous luck to be caught up in all this. The crisis, protest and strike not only riled up the entire archaeologist community, they now seem to be working to rule (leaving no stone unturned, no pun intended), they are missed a whole season of digging and are more backlogged than ever.
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/archaeologists-protest-mafia-violence-on-mykonos-1234661171/
