Greek Architecture

Greek Architecture

The architecture of ancient Greece is represented by buildings in the sanctuaries and cities of mainland Greece, the Aegean islands, southern Italy and Sicily, and Turkey. Monumental Greek architecture began in the archaic period, flourished through the classical and Hellenistic periods, and saw the first of many revivals when the Roman Empire started to create works like the Greeks. The roots of Greek architecture are mostly in the Houses, Sculptures and Palaces. There are many types of architecture that we went over in class but the one type I would like to talk about it Sacred Architecture. The Greeks conceived of their gods in a human-like form, as representations of the forces and elements of the natural world. These gods and goddesses were worshiped with sacrifices made at an outdoor altar. At many sanctuaries, the altar was much older than the temple, and some sanctuaries had only an altar. The temple designed simply as a shelter or home for the cult statue and as a storehouse for offerings. Like at the Temple to Nike.

The earliest buildings in Greek architecture were the temples. Since these were solidly built and carefully maintained, they had to be replaced only if destroyed during an earth quake, nature disaster or if another civilization raided and looted the place. They Mainly focused on Doric styles on the mainland.

Ð''Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base; their vertical shafts were fluted with 20 parallel concave grooves; and they were topped by a smooth capital that flared from the column to meet a square abacus at the intersection with the horizontal beam ("entablature") that they carried." Ð'- Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_order)

But Ionic and Corinthian were the main influence in the eastern Aegean which is the present day the area between Greece and Turkey.

"Ionic columns normally stand on a base (but see Erectheum illustration, below left) which separates the shaft of the column from the stylobate or platform. The capital of the Ionic column has characteristic paired scrolling volutes that are laid on the molded cap ("echinus") of the column, or spring from within it. The cap is usually enriched with egg-and-dart. Originally the volutes lay in a single plane (illustration at right); then it was seen that they could be angled out on the corners. This feature of the Ionic order made it more pliant and satisfactory than the Doric to critical eyes in the 4th century BC: angling the volutes on the corner columns, ensured that they "read" equally when seen from either front or side facade." Ð'- Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionic_order)

"An outstanding Ionic temple is the Erechtheum, built, perhaps by Mnesicles, on the Acropolis opposite the Parthenon. Uneven ground, and the religious fear of destroying former sanctuaries, forced the architect to build the temple on a complicated asymmetrical floor plan. The entablature of the porch is supported by statues of female figures, called caryatids, instead of by columns. Another Ionic work, a light, graceful building, is the Temple of Athena Nike, at the south-west corner of the Acropolis. The temple stood until the 17th century, when the Ottoman Turks pulled it down to make an artillery position, but was rebuilt in 1835 in close accordance with the original structure." MSN Encarta

The Archaic period evolved after the Mycenaen palace collapsed in 1200 BCE during the dark ages when people began rebuilding. This period in history brought about the introduction of both the Doric and Ionic Orders.

The Doric Order, which originated around 400 BCE brought rise to a whole new type of building technique and style. In the archaic temples, stone gradually started to replace wood, and some of the structural details of the early buildings appear to have been copied in stone. At Thermon, in northwestern Greece, a succession of buildings from the Last Bronze Age throughout the sixth century BCE show the evolution of the Doric temple from a hall shaped like a hairpin to a long rectangular building with a porch at either end and surrounded by columns. The temple of Hera at Olympia, built about or around 600 BCE, had wooden columns that were gradually replaced by stone ones, probably as votive gifts. The variety of column and capital shapes illustrates the evolution of the Doric order. The earliest columns had a heavy, bulging profile, and their capitals were broad and low. During the archaic period, limestone became the standard building material for foundations, steps, walls, columns, and Doric entablature. Building such as the famous Temple of Aphaia on Aegina illustrate the dramatic influence of the Doric order.

White and the Doric order became the standard for mainland Greece, the Ionian colonies in the eastern Aegean were developing a very different system of columns and entablature based on Egyptian and Near Eastern architecture. The tall slender columns, low entablature, and lack of sculptured frieze course were typical of Ionic buildings. The sixth century BCE Ionic temples were unprecedented in size, as large as 55 by 112 m. Wealthy cities each has six major temples, sometimes arranged in a regular sequence, in addition to the