(b Nicosia, 5 Oct 1912). Cypriot architect and painter. He graduated from the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia in 1931 and until 1936 designed houses under the supervision of Odysseus Tsangarides (1907–74), Municipal Architect of Nicosia. Dikaios studied architecture and fine art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1937–40) and Lyon (1942–6), graduating from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, in 1946. He was a protégé of Tony Garnier, working with him in his studio, on the Cité industrielle project, and this experience influenced his design aesthetic. His characteristic use of reinforced concrete was derived from exposure to the works of Auguste Perret. Dikaios returned to Cyprus in 1947 and simultaneously began painting and practising architecture. In the 1950s he primarily designed small private houses, some of which were avant-garde for Cyprus and reflected the form and character of structures in Garnier’s Cité industrielle; others catered to the aesthetic interests of expatriate British clients, through their stylistic references to Byzantine and medieval antecedents in Cyprus. Among the large buildings he designed are the Cooperative Central Bank (1960) and a Maronite church and business complex (1961; both Nicosia). Each expresses its reinforced concrete structure, but in a contrasting manner: the Central Bank has a crisp rectangularity, recalling buildings of the Cité industrielle, while the Maronite church has towering, yet delicate, filigree tracery as seen in Perret’s Notre-Dame-du-Raincy (1922–3), near Paris. Dikaios’s paintings are mainly impressionistic landscapes in watercolours or oils, reflecting the brilliant light of Cyprus. In 1969 the French government honoured Charilaos Dikaios as a ‘Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres’.

• Dikaios, Charilaos
  • Cyprus, §V, 2: Ottoman and modern architecture, painting and sculpture