7 ‘The Landscape of the Gods: Ancient Greece
With the architecture of ancient Greece
we return to the mainstream European
tradition, One of the mast aesthetically
perfect bodies of workin the Western
European tradition, it was also the foun
ation of many subsequent styles in it.
ferent parts of the worl. It therefore
‘occupies a unique place in our story, and
we must look at it carefully and ask how
it tock shape. Its growth and develop-
ment forms one of the most entrancing
{episodes in architectural history. It has
2 logic and inevitability about it, ke the
drama that the same civilization was
able to invent and perform,
To the traveller approaching Attica by
boat and seeing the white columns of the
Temple of Possidon at Cape Sounion (fig.
{961 forthe first time (not one of the eari-
est buildings; it dates from about 44o ec)
the immediate impact, withthe ruins