Field notes · Photographic essay
Pyrgi → Chios → Northern Aegean → Aegean
Women in Pyrgi.
Collector mode
A photograph to live with. Enter a private viewing.Introduction
In Pyrgi, the façades themselves tell the story: geometric black-and-white xysta patterns turn the village into one of the most distinctive visual worlds in Chios.
A story held by place
Follow the people, photographs and traditions of this essay into their wider geography.
While travelling through southern Chios, George Tatakis spent time in Pyrgi, the best-known of the Mastichochoria for its striking xysta decoration. The carved black-and-white patterns that cover the village façades give Pyrgi a unique visual identity, while the people moving through its alleys keep that built tradition firmly connected to everyday life.
Pyrgi is the most visually distinctive of the Mastichochoria. Its façades are covered in xysta — intricate black-and-white geometric decorations created by scratching patterns into plaster — giving the village a graphic identity unlike anywhere else in Greece.
Walking through Pyrgi means moving through an environment where architecture is not simply background, but a living part of local culture. Every alley, doorway and square carries the same visual language.
Although variations of this decorative tradition can be found elsewhere in the Mastichochoria, Pyrgi is the place most closely identified with xysta. Here the technique becomes inseparable from the village itself.
What makes Pyrgi compelling is not only the ornament, but the way daily life unfolds within it: people crossing the square, pausing in conversation, or standing quietly in doorways while the patterned surfaces continue to define the rhythm of the place.
In Pyrgi, architecture does not sit behind life — it participates in it.