Greek

Architecture

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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 three-feet long and weigh as much as 80 pounds.

Greek Temples – Column and Lintel

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.

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.

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, non-continuous 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 column-diameter 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 speaker’s 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 andron—site 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 HousePublic 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 woman’s 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