to distant hills. Tradition assigns its design to Polykleitos, of the tholos, but not all scholars agree with this attribution. The theater was built in two stages, the lower 5000 seats in thirty-four tiers dating from 350 sce, with the upper twenty-one tiers being added in the second centuty ner, extending the total capacity to about 14,000 ‘cats. The ring of seats closest to the orchestra were PI vided with backs and used by dignitaries, while everyone tlse sat on continuous benches raised slightly above the row in front of them. An efficient system of radial and oss aisles provided circulation from entrances at multiple levels, Most remarkably, the acoustical design worked so swell that words spoken in a normal voice from the orches. tra projected intelligibly to all seats. The theater is still used for performances. architect GREEK CITY PLANNING The Athenian Agora We have seen how the spatial experience of buildings on the Acropolis in Athens affected the placement and design of temples on the site, so that what appears in plan to be ‘a haphazard arrangement unfolds before the visitor as a logical sequence in an ordered and balanced universe. ‘The static poise of a colonnaded temple is enhanced by the subtle arts of the site planner, who has used surprise and a changing perspective to reveal the full drama of the architectural forms. A similar spatial approach was taken in the layout of the Athenian Agora, the civic and commer- ‘cial heart of the city, which developed around the ancient track of the Panathenaic Way entering the city from the northwest and leading to the Acropolis (Fig. 2.36). nt of the public structures in the Agora began 600 act, and by the end of the Archaic period ‘were defined. A group of civic buildings, temples, a shrine to Zeus, and a senate house had been built on the western side at the ra Hill (Kolonos Agoraios). The bouleterion ion a nearly square plan to who comprised the elected undertaken in the Agora as well. On to the west, the Hephalstelon, a temple 1 il (god of the forge) and Athena (goddess of th constructed in about 449-444 ner. Th remarkably intact, was enriched with r an elaborate ceiling of stone coffers ngs at the base of the hill allowed for Geese buitg caster axis of the temple across the Agora to mse Attalos. Within the Agora, war damage to the Reset was repaired and the building slightly enlarged, urn stoas were built, The Painted Stoa (50 named bec displayed paintings of Athenian military triumphs a. cal and real) had an external Doric colonnade and p. columns within, It was used for informal meetings a... Hep ef sculpture ang lene Use as jury trials. The Stoic philosophers were fond of sn of mee ing there and eventually took their name from it.The 5. of Zeus replaced the earlier shrine and was used a 15 informal meeting place. The first South Stoa, whose smal rooms behind a double colonnade were used for comme, cial activities and perhaps also for dining, was constructed adjacent to the Heliaia, which was probably the main lay court. A new bouleterion was constructed ca. 415-406 sc directly behind the existing building (which was renamed the Metroon to honor Rhea, mother of the gods of Olympus, and used for city archives). Its internal arrange. ments are not clear from the excavations, but archaeolo- gists believe it had a curved configuration of seats like theater. Adjacent was a circular building, the thotos, tht was used for meals served to the fifty senators who hap- pened to be on duty. The open spaces of the Agora were used both as a racetrack and as a setting for dramatic per formances and dancing. Building in the Athenian Agora continued after the conquests of Alexander the Great. In the Hellenistic period, some Classical buildings were modified, and new ov*s ‘were constructed to create a more complete sense of spat order and closure. The dominant Temple of Hephaistos and its axial approach remained. The old Metroon = replaced by a more elaborate building serving the ss functions, with an external colonnade fronting 0"!0 ‘open civic space. The South Stoa was rebuilt on & shifted orientation, with an additional Middle Stoa ext ing parallel to it on what had originally been ope? land “Across the Panathenaic Way, which remained unch2n®! the Stoa of Attalos (Fig. 2.37) was erected at right an8'° ‘Middle Stoa, and its southern end worked with the of the Middle Stoa to establish a narro" st to the openness of the ART ‘walkways of the stoas, on hile at the same time being conn’! ce. The stoas were thoroughly w=) saa rade in aston ot20 2.36 Plan of the Agora, Athens, ca. 150 9Ct Buildings from the Classical era are indicated with shading, The diagonal route crossing the center space is the Panathenaic Way. the processional path that led from the northern city gate southeast to the Acropolis. llenistic Cities ck city planning was not always as asymmetrical and, olutionary in form as the Agora in Athens. The Greeks re perfectly capable of producing regular, orthogonal n plans and frequently employed them for colonial ies, as may be seen at Paestum (Poseidonia), which a street pattern from the mid-seventh century scr i produced huge, elongated, rectangular blocks (Fig. '8). While many cities grew organically over time, others. re rebuilt, often after suffering war damage, accordin the new, more regular town-planning s the case in the fifth and. Tomnovs res idetestos Sto of taos South tos number of towns were provided with grid blocks and care- fully considered open spaces according to the theories of a fifth-century pupil of Pythagoras, Hippodamus of Miletus, who is often regarded as the father of city planning. This label is misapplied if taken to mean that he “invented the grid plan, for orthogonal plans existed long before Hippodamus. More properly viewed, his contribution seems to have involved2.36 Plan of the Agora, Athens, ca. 150 act. Buildings from the Classical era are indicated with shading. The diagonal route crossing the center space is the Panathenaic Way, the processional path that led from the northern city gate southeast to the Acropolis. Royal Stoa Painted Stoa Stoa o Atalos __ Monument to the Eponymous Heroes Middle Stos South toa Fountain On Panathenaic Way tothe Acropolistoa of Attalos, Athens, 159-132 #cé (reconstructed 1952-56). ted to the city by A Pergamon, in ‘and the Hephasteion are the only ity remaining in the Athenian Agora. The ion of the stoa form can be traced back to has the temples of Queen Hatshepsut 2.38 Plan of Paestum (Poseidonia), 7th century ace his Greek colonial city was laid out with elongated blocks on Across the center was the public sector, jernment buildings, and temples, of Hera (identifiable by its row of central right). The site was i the Middle Ages, but is locate submerged by the sea in on dry land today. 60 CHAPTER 2 THE GREEK WORLD destruction by the Persians in 494 sce, the city was rebuil in the period following 479 scr with a plan of rectangular residential blocks and an orthogonal agora. Hippodamuss design went beyond specifying the location of civic build ings, the layout of streets, and the positioning of open spaces, to encompass design of typical single-family houses for an estimated population of 15,000 to 20,000 Houses were consistently oriented with their major rooms opening to the south, and the megaron form already familiar from Mycenaean times was used again as the basic living unit of the house During the Hellenistic period, both architecture and city planning became more elaborate and theatrical, as can be seen in the design of Pergamon, another city in Asia239 Great Alt Thishas now b Berlin the city, fea contrasts of Zeus, Pergamon, ca. 81-159 8c din the Pergamon Museum in ressive shrine, originally set on a hillside above 8 dramatic frieze of large sculpted figures that h the serenity of the colonnade above. Minor that between 28: and 133 act‘aspited to imitate the glory that once emanated from Athens. It became ‘capital of the Attalid Dynasty, whose ‘ofking in pa Galatians (C: Pergamon saders took the title to celebrate their military victories over the tribes). Originating as a hilltop fortress, ew in terraced steps down from the summit with level sites for buildings supported on well-engineered retaining walls and linked by monumental stairs. On such 4 precipitous site, a grid plan was out of the question; the toad has switchbacks to minimize the slope. On the actop: ‘lis were temples, a distinguished library, the Sanctuary of Athena, and palaces, above a banked theater carved into the hillside that could seat 10,000 people. One of the most ‘celebrated buildings at Pergamon was the Great Altar (ca 161-159 scr), dedicated to Zeus and Athena. The high Plinth on which the altar stood became the location for a frieze over 300 feet in length and sculpted with scenes of battles between gods and giants, an obvious allusion to #ecent battles with the Celts (Fig. 2.39), Intertwined wings, mms, and writhing snake bodies create a dynamic compo: sition: even the hair on the gods’ heads and beards falls in animated coils. The highly dramatic frieze contrasts with the elegant colonnaded building above, and it also com Plements the equally dramatic site, an architectural tour de force that has little of the restraint and sublimated feeling, that governed the design of the Athenian Acropolis. CONCLUSIONS ABOUT (CHITECTURAL IDEAS archaeology on Minoan sites in Crete has not tablished a satisfactory picture of Minoan design thinkin evidence does suggest some kind of experien. tially based planning, or perceptual thinking, as op; to abstract, geometric ordering, or conception th od nking. The mainland Mycenaeans invented the megaron, with its two-spatial-unit plan of prodomos and domos. The mega- ron anticipated the Classical Greek temple plan, with its three spatial units: pronaos, naos or cella, and opisthodo mos. To these spaces, the later Greeks added various col umn configurations: in antis, prostyle and amphiprostyle, and peripteral, using them in isolation but more often in combination. The impressive masonry of the Mycenaeans was suc ‘ceeded by the exquisite stone craftsmanship of the ancient Greeks, and Pentelic marble made it possible for them to carve the fine detail requ and Corinth d by the orders (Doric, Ionic mn) that form the basis of the classical lan guage of architecture. At the core of this language lies the nt Greek system of arithn with societal value ic proportions. Encoded. temples like the Parthenon were meant to be “read,” not just seen, as their sculptural pro grams explained the Athenian position in the world. The approach to the P. thenon was, of course, along route with constantly changing orientations, culminat 1g in an oblique view of the freestanding temple through the column screen of the Propylaea. Such a fluid system of movement, comparable to Minoan designs, gave way in the Hellenistic period to geometric regularity, axi and rigorously organized building ensembles and environ- ments, and this new type of planning would be appropri ated by Republican Rome. In the nineteenth century, the classical language of ancient Greek architecture would reappear throughout Europe in the form of the Greek Revival, as discussed in Chapter 13. CONCLUSIONS ABOUT ARCHITECTURAL IDEAS 61