A large sculpture adorning the wall of a dining room at Longwood at Oakmont is something of a penance for its creator, Sylvester “Syl” Damianos.
Damianos, 91, and his wife of 67 years, Eva Lu, moved from their home of 53 years in Edgewood to a country home at the Presbyterian SeniorCare campus in Plum seven years ago.
When the couple were setting up their new home, Damianos saw workers installing a drainage system aimed at their yard. Concerned their patio could be flooded, he yelled and swore at them — “badly,” he recalls.
“That’s probably my Greek heritage,” he said.
The head of maintenance admonished him.
“It’s something I deserved,” Damianos said. “I decided from that point on to be peaceful and free.”
“Peace and Freedom” is the name of the sculpture Damianos, a lifelong architect and artist, gifted to Longwood. It took him four months to create the 18-foot-wide, 8-foot-tall spiral from more than 300 pieces of poplar wood. It is displayed in Longwood’s StoneRidge dining room.
It is his last large-scale work in sculpture, the culmination of a seven-decade career in architecture and art.
“I don’t think I could do another one,” he said. “I don’t have the energy anymore.”
The McKeesport native is the son of a Greek immigrant who met his wife in France while serving in the Army during World War I. Damianos, the father of three daughters, has one grandchild and has outlived his two older brothers and, recently, an older sister, Juliette Homoki of Hampton, who died Dec. 15 at 93.
After graduating from McKeesport High School in 1951, Damianos didn’t expect or want to go to college, wanting to sell hot dogs in his father’s restaurant. His father insisted he learn a trade.
After being unable to get into Pitt for aeronautical engineering, he was accepted on a probationary basis at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, today’s Carnegie Mellon University. That school did not have aeronautical engineering, so he decided to try architecture.
Architecture “was not a lifelong dream,” he said. “I hadn’t even heard of Frank Lloyd Wright back then. I learned quickly.”
Damianos would go on to be a Fulbright Scholar at the Technological Institute of Delft, the Netherlands. After an internship and association with Celli-Flynn Architects and Engineers, he co-founded Damianos Pedone in 1967, which became Damianosgroup.
Iconic building designer
Over the course of his architecture career from 1954 to 2010, his work has included the Hillman Library at Pitt, the Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center in Johnstown, the St. Lazarus crypt at Resurrection Catholic Cemetery in Moon and the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children in Oakland.
He is most proud of his work helping the disabled. One of his brothers, Gus Damianos, had multiple sclerosis, and Damianos, as president of the American Institute of Architects, was at the White House in 1990 when President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law.
“I was very committed to the disability cause,” he said.
Damianos’ journey into art was following his wife, a painter. He still has his first painting, of a vase full of flowers, that he did in 1958, during the middle of his service in the Army from 1957 to 1959. Upon returning to Pittsburgh, they were both accepted into the first Three Rivers Arts Festival in 1960, spurring his involvement in the arts.
He has worked in a range of materials — canvas, concrete, metal and wood.
“My latest is all wood, especially since I’m not supposed to lift anything heavy,” he said.
His art has won numerous awards and commissions for private and public patrons, among them a piece for the Westinghouse Nuclear Energy Center in Monroeville. But that large piece, at 85 feet, has been missing since the building was sold.
“I’m still looking for it,” he said.
Wood became his favorite material to work with, influenced by his friendship with George Nakashima, an American woodworker, architect and furniture maker. Nakashima was 85 when he died in June 1990 in New Hope, Pa.
“He taught me about the beauty of wood,” Damianos said.
“Peace and Freedom” is a representation of a Fibonacci spiral, or golden spiral, through which Damianos said he creates curves using only straight pieces of wood.
“It just captures my imagination,” he said.
The finished sculpture is based on a model Damianos gave to Longwood’s senior director, Kevin Henderson, who approved the installation.
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“When he discussed his plan for his latest work of art, ‘Peace and Freedom,’ we said yes immediately. Syl is a great artist but an even better person,” Henderson said.
“Syl has been very involved in the lives of the residents at Longwood at Oakmont,” Henderson said. “He has been active in many clubs and resident communities. Whether helping to improve our woodshop or being a leader on the landscape architecture planning committee, Syl’s input is always welcomed and invaluable.”
The remarkable people Damianos has come to know at Longwood, employees and residents, is something he had not anticipated.
“There are so many great people here,” he said. “I wanted to thank them all. That’s what this is.”
While his large work is behind him, Damianos said he continues to create, albeit on a smaller scale.
“It’s the best form of therapy anybody could ever have,” he said. “When I’m working in the shop, all my aches and pains disappear.”
If that’s the case, can “Peace and Freedom” really be his last large-scale creation, as he says?
“I lie a lot,” he said.