ATLAS OF ATHOS
TOPOGRAPHY AND HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE
Three volumes, with plates
In four languages: Greek, German, English, Russian
By Paul M. Mylonas
Wasmuth, Tübingen, 2001
PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE GERMAN ARCHEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE,
BERLIN
An important event of interest to architectural and art historians is
the publication of the Atlas of Athos, in the German Archeological
Institute’s series "Bildlexikon", by Paul M. Mylonas, Professor of
Architecture and Member of the Athens Academy. This superbly
illustrated three-volume book offers a complete documentation of the
extraordinary monuments, art and natural beauty of the Athos peninsula.
The product of a lifetime’s research (1954-2001), the Atlas of Athos is
a work of international appeal, given the significance of its subject,
excellence of scholarship and high quality of production. Independently
of scientific value, its publication is timely: it is the most thorough
documentation of the Monastic State of Athos, whose fate in recent years
is at risk, due to attempts at development.
Passionately dedicated to the preservation of this great cultural
heritage, Professor Mylonas carried out a personal "campaign" on the
Athos project, reducing his own architectural activities, which included
a number of prize-winning projects.
The three volumes of the Atlas draw upon a vast amount of research
material that the author has collected during his
one-hundred-eighty-seven field trips to the site over the last
forty-seven years. Mylonas’ "Archive of Athos Drawings" in Athens
contains thousands of sketches, carefully converted into ink-drawn
plates for the Atlas, mostly at a scale of 1:50. These plates,
painstakingly rendering the architectural plans and major fresco cycles
of the monasteries, are in themselves of artistic merit due to the high
quality of delineation and presentation.
The author’s photographic archive of the monuments and landscapes of
Athos consists of many thousands black-and-white and color photographs
of professional quality, including breathtaking aerial views taken
during thirty-five helicopter flights between 1965 and 1988. The
expressive power of the photographs, which superbly illustrate the text
of the Atlas, produces a unique sense of communion with the majesty of
Athos.
The Atlas of Athos is not only a meticulous documentary survey of the
major monasteries on the Holy Mountain, but it presents new
interpretations of particular architectural problems, as well as a new
theory regarding the origins of the architectural types found on Mount
Athos.
The author, a member of the Athens Academy since 1996, is a graduate of
the Athens Technical University and of Columbia University in New York.
A well known specialist on Byzantine architecture, he has published and
lectured widely on the subject, and presented the 1986 "Mathews
Lectures" on Byzantine Architecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York.
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