Jan 25, 20162 min read

Syn Apeiro || Hellas' surprise

In this post, I write about a jewellery laboratory & shop that I run into when I was living in Athens, Greece. It is called Syn Apeiro.

I remember I had I french friend visiting and I have decided to show her the area of Gazi - a bohemian part of Athens, where you can find art displays and galleries, alternative shops, cool restaurants and bars. We were both architects, so I knew this kind of neighborhood would please her.

While we were wondering around, I perceive a small contemporary jewellery shop. In display, a collection called "Maps of my Life". Urbanism and jewellery came together and, as an architect, I simply loved it!

Once we got in, we met Kalliopi Andrikopoulou (the jewellery designer) and Katerina Latoufi (also an architect, who is responsible for the design courses in the jewellery seminars). At the time, the jeweler explained us more about her collections, perceptions and jewellery researches. I immediately sympathized with both of them and simply could not take my eyes off those "Maps" !

These pieces had everything I loved. They were minimalist, geometric, they played with perspective, scales and proportions. But above all, I found them poetic.

The streets we pass through every day make part of our history, our path and even our identity. Sometimes we do not recall its name, but for sure we all remember how is the street where we were born, went to school, got our first job or even fallen in love… So, for me, this collection symbolized, not only locations in a map, but also living moments and stories. Kalliopi had managed to have architecture, urbanism, poetry and jewellery, all in one piece. This amazed me.

I met a great jeweler by chance and the direction of my path changed.

The following week, I enrolled into the Syn Apeiro's jewellery workshops, having Kalliopi has my teacher. She taught me the basic jewellery techniques but, above all, that all our creations need to have a story to tell, a meaning, otherwise they might be incomplete.

Maps of my Life, Syn Apeiro by Kalliopi Andrikopoulou Drossia II All image credits: Syn Apeiro.

Jewellery pieces by Kalliopi Andrikopoulou II All image credits: Syn Apeiro

It has been 3 years since I first met them, and since then, Syn Apeiro has been more and more active and a reference to greek's contemporary jewellery. They continue their jewellery seminars, now with a different structure: 3 year course. Here are some pictures of the projects developed by the students who attended Katerina Latoufi’s design seminar. It’s incredible how we can find resemblances between architecture and jewellery creative process like, for instance, both use sketches, detail drawing and even models to accurate the final piece's design.