Monolith House / Desypri&Misiaris Architecture

THE LAND. “Stone everywhere. Stone in the cobbled streets, the tower houses and the churches. An enormous stone is the entire Mani, which you need three lives to see. One for the mountains, one for the sea and one for the people”. Anonymous traveler in Mani. THE ARCHITECTURE - TWO LONELY TOWERS IN THE LANDSCAPE. The main ‘idea’ of the project was to acknowledge and be inspired by a special feature of Mani’s residential forms – the ‘Ksemonia’ (meaning ‘the one who has been left alone’), which were lonely towers or small residential complexes standing alone in the rugged landscape of Mani, and operating as shelters or observation points. From afar, these stone-built towers appear as just one more element of the land, like monolithic outbursts from the soil, yet their very existence records the imprint of the turbulent life of the traditional Mani on this remarkable landscape.