GREEK ARCHITECT DESIGNS LUXURIOUS HOUSES FOR ACTORS AND THE ELITE IN INDIA
A Greek woman from Florina, Grigoria Oikonomou, is the architect of the stars of the Indian film industry, Bollywood and Tollywood, reports APEPE. He created a unique studio for the elite of the local community, with designs and constructions of luxury houses, bungalows, villas for holidays, under the name: “M / S SHIBA GRIGORIA PVT LTD”. Economou has offices in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
One of her famous clients is the popular actor and director, the world famous Rakesh Roshan. Despite the recognizability and the radiance that it emits in the world of spectacle, it does not cease to feel, far from Greece, “the girl from Florina”, where she was born and raised. At the same time, she says she is happy away from home, in India, where she has been permanently settled with her family for the last 13 years. “When we first arrived in Delhi, in the early hours of September 19, 2009, with my husband (a Greek diplomat) and our two little girls, I did not feel that I had come to a foreign country,” he told the Athenian-Macedonian News Agency.
The Greek architect became the cover of the magazine “Elle Decor” of India, the most famous magazine of architecture and design in this vast country. She participated in the relevant competition in 2021, and emerged as the top designer, with a design and construction project for the holiday home of the year. In addition, one hundred architects were selected, for the architectural award of the best house, by the magazine “AD 100” (Architectural and Digest of India).
She considers herself lucky to have found her place very quickly in a country of one and a half billion inhabitants. In one year she created her first architectural office, with the aim of highlighting, through her works, the traditional Indian architecture, together with the western models of constructions. “The first thing I tried to do was to meet people, to talk to them, to understand their psyche, their character, their daily life, so that I could express all this in my plans, having the wealth of knowledge of Western architecture,” he says. He designs houses, villas, along with their interior architecture and decoration. “Sometimes I take over apartment buildings,” he says, “but again it will be for a big Indian family. Still in India, in 2022, when children get married, they live with their parents. As in Greece before. “It is very moving, because many generations manage to live peacefully and harmoniously together, which is difficult to happen today in our western world,” he said.
He studied architecture and in Belgium he was involved in interior decoration, the restoration of buildings and at the same time he studied psychology.