Saridis Furniture Industry holds a significant part of the Furniture of Modern Greece. Going through the fifth generation of offering in the field of Aesthetics and Creation, it keeps pace with social and economic developments.
It is a living witness to the internal dynamism of the country and its aesthetic pursuits. Post-war industrialization finds the House at the forefront. It creates a brand that is purely Greek and internationally recognizable. It preserves the collective memory and transfers know-how from generation to generation.
In an era when there is nothing in the world that someone cannot make a little cheaper and sell it a little cheaper, the House resists by promoting Greek design as a top alternative.
Beneath the timeless columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, in the warm light of 1961 Athens, two men sit together,Terence Harold Robsjohn-Gibbings and Carlton Pullin, “Gibby” and “Poulaki” to their Athenian friends.
Partners in creation and in life, they shared not only the work of reimagining the ancient forms of Greek furniture, but also a quiet devotion rarely spoken of in their time.
In their hands and minds, the classical world was not just history, it was a living language of beauty, proportion, and grace. Together, they revived the Furniture of Greece, breathing new life into the elegance of the past.
In their hearts, they carried a love as enduring as the marble ruins around them, unshaken by the centuries, unbound by convention.
Here, in this photograph, the ancient and the modern meet,not only in architecture and design, but in the human story of two souls who found in each other both a muse and a home. Their work remains, but so too does the quiet truth: that love, like art, is a legacy.
Here are the words they might have been spoken:
Carlton Pullin (Poulaki): “You know, Gibby… this stone has been here for nearly two thousand years. Imagine all the lives it has seen.”
Robsjohn-Gibbings (Gibby): “And yet it feels warm today. I suppose that’s the magic of Greece—it makes even the coldest marble feel alive.”
Poulaki: “We’re trying to do the same thing with our chairs, aren’t we? To take something ancient… and make it breathe again.”
Gibby: “Yes. But our work is lighter. These columns were made to hold the weight of gods. We’re making things to hold the weight of people gracefully, without them even noticing.”
Poulaki: “And what about us? Will we last as long as these ruins?”
Gibby: “Maybe not in stone… but perhaps in the way someone sits in one of our chairs, and feels the dignity of something timeless. That’s our monument.”
Poulaki: “And each other?”
Gibby: “We already have eternity in that, Poulaki.”