Agios Dimitrios
Agios Dimitrios Church — Thessaloniki, Greece — Greek Orthodox
Ninth drawing in the Anastylosis Project
Researched in 2010, drawn in 2010-2011

This is the building that blew away everything I thought I knew about decoration and pattern.  Byzantine ideas about the dematerialization of space through the use of pattern and gold leaf is awe-inspiring.  A byzantine interior overwhelms the senses and lets you know that you have entered a place that is not of this world. The riot of pattern, texture and gilded surfaces resulted in the first of the drawings in the Anastylosis Project to be explicitly about the interior of the building, with just hints of the brickwork and roofline to refer to the rather plain exterior. This drawing is filled with collage elements of other drawings in the projects and embodies the theme of conversation between the drawings of these contemporaneous buildings.