The year 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the passing of Greece’s national poet, Kostis Palamas. This coincides with the gratifying news that the Ministry of Culture will proceed with the restoration of the poet’s historic house at 5 Periandrou Street in Plaka. The poet lived in this two-storey building in an apartment on the second floor during the last years of his life, together with his wife, Maria, and their daughter, Nausica, and neighbouring tenants; he drew his final breath there in February 1943.

Driven by its founder’s admiration for the work of the poet Kostis Palamas, the Sylvia Ioannou Foundation has undertaken the financial responsibility for the drafting of the restoration and use redesignation study for the building in accordance with the specifications stipulated by the Ministry of Culture, thus contributing to the restoration of a historical landmark of Athens. The two-storey building has been listed as a historical monument since 1999. The original building seems to date from the early 20th century, and after its restoration it will serve as a space for education and study of Modern Greek literature in general, but also as a place for the dissemination of the work of the great Greek poet.

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‘When great national ideals live and bloom in everyone’s home, the poet can build them palaces; when they are declining and everyone is denying them, the poet takes them into his hut and gives them shelter.’

Kostes Palamas, preface to The Twelve Words of the Gypsy
(Άπαντα [Collected works], vol. 3, trans. Theodore Ph. Stephanides and George C. Katsimbalis, Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1975, p. xxix)