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Greek
Architecture

Architecture of Ancient Greece

- Greek mainland
- Aegean Islands
- Greek colonies in Asia Minor (Ionia - Turkey), Sicily, Italy
Time period : 900 27 BC
Famous for
- Temples (Parthenon, Erecthium, Athena Nike)
- Monumental Tombs
- Open air Theatres
- Market Places (agora)
- Covered Colonnade (Stoa)
- Monumental Gateway (Propylon)
- Stadiums
- Gymnasium (Palaestra)

No royalty no palaces

Importance
1. Logic and Order
Logic and order are at the heart of Greek architecture. Planned their
buildings according to a coded scheme of parts, based first on
function, then on a reasoned system of sculptural decoration.
Mathematics determined the symmetry, the harmony, the eye's
pleasure.

2. Building Art and Aesthetics

Greek designers used precise mathematical calculations to determine
the height, width and other characteristics of architectural elements.
These proportions were changed slightly, and certain individual
elements (columns, capitals, base platform), tapered or curved, in
order to create the optimum visual effect, as if the building was a
piece of sculpture.

Importance
3. Invention of Classical Orders
Each of the orders is a proportional system or a range of proportions
for the entire structure

4. Exquisite Sculptures
Architects commissioned sculptors to carve friezes, statues and other
architectural sculptures, whose beauty has rarely, if ever, been
equalled in the history of art

5. Influence on other schools

- Roman architecture
- Neo classical architecture
- Greatest possible influence on the proportions, style
and aesthetics of the 18th and 19th centuries (Louis Sullivan)

Origin
For the Greeks, temples were not only places to worship the gods but
also impressive symbols of their society and culture. They were built
as focal points on the highest ground of every city in Greece.
The temple was merely a house (oikos) for the god, who was
represented there by his cult statue, constructed according to a simple
rectangle, made out of rubble and mud brick with timber beams and a
thatched or flat clay roof.
By 700 BC, this was superceeded by a sloping roof made from fired
clay roof tiles. Their interiors used a standard plan adapted from the
Mycenean palace megaron. The temple's main room, which contained
the statue of the god, or gods, to whom the building was dedicated,
was known as the cella or naos

Greek Temple Plans

Typical floor plan incorporated a colonnade of columns (peristyle) on all
four sides; a front porch (pronaos), a back porch (opisthodomos).

Categorized based on their ground plan and the way in which the columns
are arranged.
1. Prostyle temple is a temple that has columns only at the front
2. Amphiprostyle temple has columns at the front and the rear.
3. One of the more unusual plans is the tholos, a temple with a circular
ground plan

Greek Temple Plans

4. Temples with a peripteral arrangement have a single line of columns
arranged all around the exterior of the temple building.
5. Dipteral temples simply have a double row of columns surrounding the
building.

Greek Temples

Tholos temple, sanctuary of

Athena Pronaia, 4th century
B.C.E., Delphi, Greece,

Temple Base and Walls

The temple was built on a masonry
base (crepidoma), which elevated it
above the surrounding ground. The
base usually consists of three steps:
the topmost step is the stylobate; the
two lower steps are the stereobate
Temples were given masonry walls,
consisting mostly of local stone
rubble, sometimes augmented by
high quality ashlar masonry. Inside
the temple, the inner sanctum
(cella/naos) was made of stone

Greek Temples Roof

All early temples had a
flat thatched roof,
supported by columns
(hypostyle), but as soon
as walls were made
from stone and could
therefore support a
heavier load, temples
were given a slightly
sloping roof, covered
with ceramic terracotta
tiles. These roof tiles
could be up to threefeet long and weigh as
much as 80 pounds.

Greek Temples Column and Lintel

The stone columns themselves
usually consisted of a series of
solid stone "drums" - set one
upon the other, without
mortar - but sometimes joined
inside with bronze pegs.

Use of "post and lintel" techniques, involving

vertical uprights (columns or posts)
supporting horizontal beams (lintels). This
method, known as trabeated construction,
dates back to earliest times when temples
were made from timber and clay, and was
later applied to stone posts and horizontal
stone beams.

Greek Temples Column

Each column is composed of
a shaft and a capital; some with a base
The shaft may be decorated with
vertical or spiral grooves, called fluting
The capital has two parts: a rounded
lower part (echinus), above which is a
square-shaped tablet (abacus). The
appearance of the echinus and abacus
varies according to the stylistic
"template" or order" used in the
temple's construction.

Greek Temples Orders

Greek architecture followed a highly structured system of proportions that
relates individual architectural components to the whole building. This system
was developed according to three styles, or orders. Each order consists of an
upright support called a column that extends from a base at the bottom to a
shaft in the middle and a capital at the top much like the feet, body, and
head of the human figure. The capital was often a stylized representation of
natural forms, such as animal horns or plant leaves.

Entablature
Capital supports a horizontal element
called the entablature, which is divided
further into three different parts:
Architrave (lowest part) - made up of
a series of stone lintels which span
the spaces between the columns
Frieze (middle) - consisting of a broad
horizontal band of relief sculpture
Cornice (top) - which overhangs and
protects the frieze
In Ionic and Corinthian temples, the
frieze is continuous; in Doric temples
sections of frieze (metopes) alternate
with grooved rectangular blocks
(triglyphs)

Pediment
The second tier is the pediment, a shallow triangular structure occupying the
front and rear gable of the building.
Traditionally, this triangular space contained the most important sculptural
reliefs on the exterior of the building

Materials
Limestone
High grade white marble for
architectural and sculptural decoration
Clay - used for both roof tiles and
architectural decoration
Early 8th century BC temples were
constructed with thatch roofs

From the late 7th century BC, temples,

in particular, slowly began to be
converted into more durable stone
edifices; some even had a mix of the
two materials
Blocks of stone were held in place by
bronze or iron pins set into molten
lead - a flexible system that could
withstand earthquakes

Development of Stone Architecture

650 BCE Trade links between Greece and Middle East, Egypt
Petrification process - involved the replacement of wooden
structures with stone ones
Limestone - for pillars and walls
Terracotta - for roof tiles
Marble ornamentation
Switch from brick and timber - to more permanent stone stimulated Greek
architects to design a basic architectural "template" for temples and public
buildings. This first "template", known as the Doric Order of architecture,
laid down a series of rules concerning the characteristics and dimensions
of columns, upper facades and decorative works. Subsequent "templates"
included the Ionic Order (from 600) and the Corinthian Order (from 450).

Greek Orders

Greek Orders
1. Laid down a broad set of rules concerning
the design and construction of temples
and buildings
2. Rules regulated the shape, details,
proportions, and proportional
relationships of the columns, capitals,
entablature, pediments
3. Mathematics - Appearance as their
guiding principle optical illusion and
corrections
4. Entasis, or slight swelling and recession of
the profile of the column, is but one of the
mathematical tricks to ensure in the
beholder's eye the illusion of perfect
straightness or exact regularity

Entasis
A great deal of effort was made to build temples in
prominent positions and, using sophisticated geometry,
architects included optical tricks such as thickening the
lower parts of columns, thickening corner columns, and
having columns ever so slightly lean inwards so that from
a distance the building seemed perfectly straight and in
harmony
Many of these refinements are invisible to the naked eye,
and even today only sophisticated measuring devices can
detect the minute differences in angles and dimensions
Such refinements indicate that Greek temples were,
therefore, not only functional structures but also that the
building itself, as a whole, was symbolic and an important
element in the civic landscape

Doric Order - principles

1. Easily identified by its plain capital and
lack of column-base
2. Columns have concave curves/grooves,
or flutes (usually 20), which run the full
length of the column
3. The capitals are plain with a rounded
section at the bottom, known as
the echinus, and a square at the top,
called the abacus
4. The entablature has a distinctive frieze
decorated with vertical channels, or
triglyphs
5. In between the triglyphs are spaces,
called metopes, sculpted with figures
and ornamentation

Doric Order - principles

6. Marked by Heaviness and
Stability, Bold unity
7. Columns in early Doric-style
temples - height to base-diameter
ratio of 4:1. Later, a ratio of 6:1
became more usual. During the
Hellenistic era (323-27 BCE), the
typically solid, masculine look of
the Doric temple was partly
replaced by slender, unfluted
columns, with a height to
diameter ratio of 7.5:1.

Doric Order - sculpture

Positioning of architectural sculpture in metopes/ pediment
Doric temples are clearly identified by their sectioned, noncontinuous frieze, with its alternating arrangement of scored
triglyphs and sculpted metopes
Pediment - arranging figures inside the tapering triangular area?

Parthenon, Athens (447- 437 BCE)

Temple of Hera (460 BC)

Ionic Order - principles

1. Ionic columns always have
bases
2. Have more (25-40) and
narrower flutes, which are
separated not by a sharp edge
but by a flat band (fillet).
3. Appear much lighter than Doric
columns, because they have a
higher column-height to
column-diameter ratio (9:1)
than Doric (5:1)
4. Recognizable by the highly
decorative voluted capitals of
their columns, which form
spirals (volutes)

Ionic Order - principles

5. In the entablature, the architrave of
the Ionic Order is occasionally left
undecorated, but more usually (unlike
the Doric architrave) it is ornamented
with an arrangement of overlapping
bands.
6. An Ionic temple can also be quickly
identified by its uninterrupted frieze,
which runs in a continuous band around
the building. It is separated from the
cornice (above) and architrave (below)
by a series of peg-like projections,
known as dentils.

Ionic Order

Ionic Order - principles

7. The use of draped female figures Caryatids as vertical supports for
the entablature, was a characteristic feature of the Ionic order, as
exemplified by the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi (525 BCE) and the
Erechtheion on the Athenian Acropolis.

Erechtheion (421- 406 BC)

Erechtheion (421-406 BCE)

Fragilely graceful columns
Less severe massing
Breaking up of the entablature
into more delicate units
General lightening of effect and
greater enrichment by applied
ornamentation
Six statues of maidens, known as
caryatids, took the place of the
conventional columns Southern
Portico
Building somewhere between
architecture and sculpture

Corinthian Order - principles

1. Emerged as an offshoot of the Ionic style
about 450 BCE
2. Distinguished by its more decorative
capitals
3. Corinthian capital was much taller being
ornamented with a double row of
acanthus leaves topped by voluted tendrils
4. Typically, it had a pair of volutes at each
corner, thus providing the same view from
all sides
5. The ratio of the column-height to columndiameter in Corinthian temples is usually
10:1 (compare Doric 5:1; Ionic 9:1), with
the capital accounting for roughly 10
percent of the height.

Corinthian Order

Corinthian Order - capital

Stoa

Covered walkway or colonnade designed for public use

Early examples, often employing the Doric order, were usually
composed of a single level, although later examples came to be
two-story freestanding structures
-

These later examples

allowed interior
space for shops or
other rooms and
often incorporated
the Ionic order for
interior colonnades
Greek city planners
came to prefer the
stoa as a device for
framing the agora
(public market
place) of a city or
town

Propylea
Other structures which
were constructed near
temples were
monumental entrance
gates such as
the Propylea of Athens
acropolis and small
buildings to house
dedications, often from
specific city-states.

Theatre

Composed of the tiered seating area (theatron), a circular space for the chorus to
perform (orchestra) and the screen (skene). The Greek theatre inspired the Roman
version of the theatre

Bouleuterion / Assembly Hall

Important civic building - meeting place of the citizen council. A covered, rectilinear
building with stepped seating surrounding a central speakers well with an altar

House
Houses usually were centered on a courtyard that would have been the scene for
various ritual activities; the courtyard also provided natural light for the often small
houses. The ground floor rooms would have included kitchen and storage rooms,
perhaps an animal pen and a latrine; the chief room was the andronsite of the
male-dominated drinking party (symposion). The quarters for women and children
(gynaikeion) could be located on the second level (if present) and were, in any case,
segregated from the mens area.

Stadium - Location of foot races held as part of sacred games. Long and narrow,
with a horseshoe shape, the stadium occupied reasonably flat terrain. Famous
examples include those at Nemea and Olympia which had seating capacities of
30,000 and 45,000 spectators respectively.

Gymnasium was a training center for athletes who participated in public games.
The palaestra was an exercise facility originally connected with the training of
wrestlers. These complexes were generally rectilinear in plan, with a colonnade
framing a central, open space.

Fountain House
Public building in Agora that
provides access to clean
drinking water and at which
water jars and containers could
be filled.
Gathering water was seen as a
womans task and, as such, it
offered the often isolated
women a chance to socialize
with others while collecting
water. Fountain house scenes
are common on ceramic water
jars (hydriai), as is the case for a
Black-figured hydria (c. 525-500
B.C.E.) found in an Etruscan
tomb in Vulci that is now in the
British Museum

Acropolis, Athens

Acropolis in Greek means "The Sacred Rock, the high city". The Acropolis is primarily
dedicated to the Goddess Athena. But humans from the prehistoric era have
populated the Acropolis and the caves around it. Situated in the middle of Athens,
many myths, festivals and important events are connected to the sacred Acropolis. The
Acropolis echoes the grandeur and the power of the Athenian empire.

Acropolis

Acropolis