greek architecture

Architecture (building executed to an aesthetically considered design) was extinct in Greece from the end of the Mycenaean period (about 1200 B.C.)until the 7th century B.C., when urban life and prosperity recovered to a point where public building could be undertaken. But since most Greek buildings in the colonization period 8th – 6th century B.C, were made of wood or mud-brick or clay, nothing remains of them except a few ground-plans, and almost no written sources on early architecture or descriptions of these embryonic buildings exist.

Around 600 B.C the wooden columns of the old Temple of Hera at Olympia underwent a material transformation known as "petrification", in which they were replaced by stone columns. By degrees other parts of the temple were petrified until the entire temple was made of stone. With the spread of this process to other sanctuaries, Greek temples and significant buildings from the 6th century B.C onwards were built largely from stone, and a few fortunate examples have survived through the ages. Most of our knowledge of Greek architecture comes from the late archaic period 550 – 500 B.C, the early to pure classical period 480 – 430 B.C, and the Periclean age 450 – 430 B.C. Greek examples are considered alongside Hellenistic and Roman periods (since Roman architecture heavily copied Greek), and late written sources such as Vitruvius (1st century). This results in a strong bias towards temples, the only buildings which survive in numbers.

Like Greek painting and sculpture, Greek Architecture in the first half of classical antiquity was not "art for art's sake" in the modern sense. The architect was a craftsman employed by the state or a wealthy private client. No distinction was made between the architect and the building contractor. The architect designed the building, hired the labourers and craftsmen who built it, and was responsible for both its budget and its timely completion. He did not enjoy any of the lofty status accorded to modern architects of public buildings. Even the names of architects are not known before the 5th century. An architect like Iktinos, who designed the Parthenon, who would today be seen as a genius, was treated in his lifetime as no more than a very valuable master tradesman.

The standard format of Greek public buildings is known from surviving examples such as the Parthenon and the Hephaesteum at Athens, the group at Pasteum, the temple complex at Selinunte (Selinus) and the sanctuaries at Agrigentum. Most buildings were rectangular and made from limestone or tufa, of which Greece has an abundance, and which was cut into large blocks and dressed. Marble was an expensive building material in Greece: high quality marble came only from Mt Pentelicus in Attica and from a few islands such as Paros, and its transportation in large blocks was difficult. It was used mainly for sculptural decoration, not structurally, except in the very grandest buildings of the Classical period such as the Parthenon.

The basic rectangular plan was surrounded by a colonnaded portico of columns on all four sides (peripteral or peristyle) such as the Parthenon, and occasionally at the front and rear only (amphiprostyle) as seen in the small Temple of Athena Nike. Some buildings had a projecting porch of columns forming the entrance(prostyle), while others featured a pronaos facade of columns leading on to the cella. The Greeks roofed their buildings with timber beams covered with overlapping terra cotta or occasionally marble tiles. They understood the principles of the masonry arch but made little use of it, and did not put domes on their buildings—these elaborations were left to the Romans.

The low pitch of the gable roofs produced a squat triangular shape at each end of the building, the pediment, which was typically filled with sculptural decoration. Between the roof and the tops of the columns a row of lintels formed the entablature, whose outward-facing surfaces also provided a space for sculptures, known as friezes The frieze consisted of alternating metopes (holding the sculpture) and triglyphs. No surviving Greek building preserves these sculptures intact, but they can be seen on some modern imitations of Greek buildings, such as the Greek National Academy building in Athens.

The temple was the most common and best-known form of Greek public architecture. The temple did not serve the same function as a modern church. For one thing, the altar stood under the open sky in the temenos or sacred fane, often directly before the temple. Temples served as storage places for the treasury associated with the cult of the god in question, as the location of a cult image sometimes of great antiquity, but from the time of Pheidias often a great work of art as well. The temple was a place for devotees of the god to leave their votive offerings, such as statues, helmets and weapons. The inner room of the temple, the cella, thus served mainly as a strongroom and storeroom. It was usually lined by another row of columns.

Other architectural forms used by the Greeks were the tholos or circular temple, of which the best example is the Tholos of Theodorus at Delphi dedicated to the worship of Athena Pronaia; the propylon or porch, forming the entrance to temple sanctuaries (the best-surviving example is the Propylaea on the Acropolis of Athens); and the stoa, a long narrow hall with an open colonnade on one side, which was used to house rows of shops in the agoras (commercial centres) of Greek towns. A completely restored stoa, the Stoa of Attalus, can be seen in Athens.

Greek towns of substantial size also had a palaestra or a gymnasium, the social centre for male citizens. These peripterally enclosed spaces open to the sky, were used for athletic contests and exercise. Greek towns also needed at least one bouleuterion or council chamber, a large public building which served as a court house and as a meeting place for the town council (boule). Because the Greeks did not use arches or domes, they could not construct buildings with large interior spaces. The bouleuterion thus had rows of internal columns to hold the roof up (hypostyle). No examples of these buildings survive.

Finally, every Greek town had a theatre. These were used for both public meetings as well as dramatic performances. These performances originated as religious ceremonies; they went on to assume their Classical status as the highest form of Greek culture by the 6th century BC (see Greek theatre). The theatre was usually set in a hillside outside the town, and had rows of tiered seating set in a semi-circle around the central performance area, the orchestra. Behind the orchestra was a low building called the skene, which served as a store-room, a dressing-room, and also as a backdrop to the action taking place in the orchestra. A number of Greek theatres survive almost intact, the best known being at Epidaurus.

There were two main styles (or "orders") of Greek architecture, the Doric and the Ionic. These names were used by the Greeks themselves, and reflected their belief that the styles descended from the Dorian and Ionian Greeks of the Dark Ages, but this is unlikely to be true. The Doric style was used in mainland Greece and spread from there to the Greek colonies in Italy. The Ionic style was used in the cities of Ionia (now the west coast of Turkey) and some of the Aegean islands. The Doric style was more formal and austere, the Ionic was more relaxed and decorative. The more ornate Corinthian style was a later development of the Ionic. These styles are best known through the three orders of column capitals, but there are differences in most points of design and decoration between the orders. See the separate article on Classical orders.

Most surviving Greek buildings, such as the Parthenon and the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, are Doric. The Erechtheum, next to the Parthenon, however, is Ionic. The Ionic order became dominant in the Hellenistic period, since its more decorative style suited the aesthetic of the period better than the more restrained Doric. Records show that the evolution of the Ionic order was resisted by many Greek States, as they claimed it represented the dominance of Athens. Some of the best surviving Hellenistic buildings, such as the Library of Celsus, can be seen in Turkey, at cities such as Ephesus and Pergamum. But in the greatest of Hellenistic cities, Alexandria in Egypt, almost nothing survives.

References

• Greek architecture Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1965
• Greece: From Mycenae to the Parthenon, Henri Stierlin, TASCHEN, 2004