He served as professor and rector of the Athens Polytechnic School, was named doctor honoris causa of the Technische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin), became a member of the Greek Parliament and Senator during the Interbellum, and joined the EAM-ELAS resistance movement against the German occupation of Greece in 1941-1944.

He married Kassandra, the last of 8 children, sister of Dimitri Hatsopoulos, a Member of Parliament from Karpenisi and in 1887 built a three-floor mansion in Athens.

[4] In 1917-1920, he was appointed general director of Public Works of the government of Eleftherios Venizelos and initiated the return to Greece of famous Greek scholars from abroad, such as Constantin Carathéodory.

In that city he met his future wife, the Cretan Beata Kitsikis née Petychakis (1907-1986), of Cairo Greek Orthodox and Trieste Roman Catholic background.

His fame as a scientist was such in the interwar years that, after being honoured in 1936, with a doctorate honoris causa from TH Charlottenburg), he was invited in 1939 with his wife, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, by the German government to visit the technical achievements of the Third Reich, as a guest of Albert Speer, Hitler's architect-in-chief.

[10] At a time when the People's Republic of China was not officially recognized by the Greek Government, he became the de facto ambassador of Beijing in Athens.

[11] At the Athens municipal elections of 1964 he had polled first but being a member of the outlawed Greek Communist Party, because of the electoral law, Georgios Plytas, the candidate of the Right was pronounced mayor instead.