Cypriot Minister of Education and Culture Pefkios Georgiades died Wednesday at the age of 72 after a heart attack.
Georgiades was a close associate of President Tassos Papadopoulos and was born appointed minister in the president’s first cabinet soon in March 2003.
His funeral will take place Thursday at 1430 local time, at Panagia Evagelistria Church at Nicosia’s suburb of Pallouriotissa.
All public and private schools remained closed as a sign of respect.
President Papadopoulos, the Primate of the Church of Cyprus, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, House of Representatives President Demetris Christofias, political party leaders and other officials will attend the funeral.
Parliament will observe a one-minute silence at the start of its weekly plenary session in the afternoon.
Georgiades had attended the Council of Ministers’ weekly session on Wednesday morning and early in the afternoon attended a seminar in Nicosia to discuss future e-school programmes in an ambitious project that would take up to 2009 to implement. There he felt unwell and he was rushed to Nicosia General Hospital where he suffered a heart attack.
Pefkios Georgiades graduated from the Pancyprian Gymnasium in 1952. In 1957 he earned a degree in Architecture from the University of Sheffield in the UK and after practicing architecture in England and passed the relevant examinations he became a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
He returned to Cyprus in 1959 and took up a post in the Department of Public Works. In 1961 he won a scholarship from the Government of The Netherlands which led to a post graduate degree from the “Bowcentrum” in Rotterdam in programming and designing architecture works.
In 1962 he was appointed Architect – Head of the Technical Services of the Ministry of Education, a post he kept until 1972, when he left public service and opened his own architectural office where he was involved with a large number of projects, covering a wide range of uses, such as buildings for the tourist industry, groups of offices, multi storey buildings, museums, etc.
He was particularly interested in the study/preservation of the cultural heritage of Cyprus and especially the architectural heritage. He received many distinctions and awards for important architectural works.
In 1996 he was awarded an honourary Doctorate by Oxford Brookes University.
Georgiades was President of the Cyprus Association of Civil Engineers and Architects and a member of the Board of Directors of the Theatrical Organisation of Cyprus (THOK), the Fine Arts and Monuments Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Education, the Board of Directors of the Cyprus Organisation for Land Development and Europa Nostra.
He was Secretary General of the Board of Directors of the Cyprus Organisation for Architectural Heritage and was recently elected President of the Cyprus Branch of ICOMOS. He was also a member of the Scientific and Technical Institute of Cyprus.
