Konstantinos Staikos - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Curriculum vitae
Konstantinos Staikos was born in Athens in 1943. After secondary school, he was accepted to the department of Applied Arts of the Athens School of Fine Arts, and studied at the workshop of professor Vasilis Vasileiadis, which focused on set design, for two years. With his portfolio, he was then admitted to the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Paris. From 1968 he worked at several architecture and design studios of Paris that specialized in the restoration and renovation of historical and monumental buildings such as the Château de Ferrières. At that time, Κ. Staikos began to amass his library, beginning with publications relating to historical architectural monuments of France and symbolic decorative motifs of various periods and civilizations in East and West.

In addition to his professional activity, Κ. Staikos began to enrich his main book collection with editions related to the history of Greek printing from the 15th century onwards. His activity as a collector of books quickly evolved into a passion for researching the publishing activity of the Greeks from the Renaissance to the aftermath of the Greek War of Independence of 1821. His interest in the pioneers who spread Greek thought by means of books printed in East and West further intensified after he entrusted with restoring the library of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos island.

During his ten-year involvement with the Library and Museum of the Monastery of Patmos, Κ. Staikos was able to closely study the institution of the library in several civilizations throughout history. Thus he embarked on an investigation in order to write an account of the evolution of the library from the points of view of both library science and architecture, beginning in 4000 BC. This research resulted in the five-volume History of the Library in Western Civilization, published between 2000 and 2013, and currently available in Greek, English and as of recently in Chinese.

Thanks to the success of his work on Patmos, new professional opportunities presented themselves in the field of restoring and renovating monumental and historical buildings. He was thus commissioned the restoration of the Library of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at Phanar, the conversion of the interior of Kostis Palamas building (designed by Cleanthes) to Cultural Centre and Lounge of the University of Athens, the conversion of the Rotonda, that is, the Catholic church of San Teodoro on the Palatine Hill, to an Orthodox church, the renovation of Athens City Hall and various other projects.

During all this time, Κ. Staikos continued to enrich his personal collection of books both with original works relating to the publishing activity of the Greeks before the creation of the modern Greek state, and with studies on the printing and production of books all over Europe, thus tracing the path of the printed book all over the world.

Over time, a wealth of incunabula and early publications had been amassed, making up a collection of rare and even unique books. Konstantinos Staikos began to think about ensuring its future. He believes that a collection of books reflecting Greek intellectual history cannot be a private affair but should instead become the possession of all the Greeks. He consequently sought a future home for the library. By good fortune, the Board of Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation granted his request and provided specially designated spaces at the seat of the Foundation, in which bookcases for the entire collection were installed. The collection is continually enriched with books, in accordance with the original rationale of its creation.

In addition, Konstantinos Staikos considered that the vast corpus of documented information and images that he had amassed could take the form of an encyclopedia after careful research and further documentation. Such a resource could only become available to the wider public in digital form, and so he envisioned the creation of About Libraries website.

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