Answer to Question no. 11.

of Question Bank

a. Why is it claimed that Greek architecture is virtually the

parent of all Western European architecture. What are
b. the origins of Greek Architecture?

b. Give a brief description of Greek Temple Architecture

Ancient Greek Architecture
• The architecture of Ancient Greece is the
architecture produced by the Greek-speaking people
(Hellenic people) whose culture flourished on the
Greek mainland and Peloponnesus, the Aegean
Islands, and in colonies in Asia Minor and Italy for a
period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD,
with the earliest remaining architectural works
dating from around 600 BC.
Map of ancient Greece
• Ancient Greek architecture is best known from it
temples, many of which are found throughout the
region, mostly as ruins but many substantially intact.
• The second important type of building that survives
all over the Hellenic world is the open-air theatre,
with the earliest dating from around 350 BC.
• Other architectural forms that are still in evidence
are the processional gateway (propylon), the public
square (agora) surrounded by storied colonnade
(stoa), the town council building (bouleuterion), the
public monument, the monumental tomb
(mausoleum) and the stadium.
• Ancient Greek architecture is distinguished by its
highly formalised characteristics, both of structure
and decoration. This is particularly so in the case of
temples where each building appears to have been
conceived as a sculptural entity within the landscape,
most often raised on high ground so that the
elegance of its proportions and the effects of light on
its surfaces might be viewed from all angles.

(Formalised characteristics –characterized by rigorous

adherence to recognized forms.)
• The formal vocabulary of Ancient Greek architecture,
in particular the division of architectural style into
three defined orders: the Doric Order, the Ionic Order
and the Corinthian Order, was to have profound
effect on Western architecture of later periods. The
architecture of Ancient Rome grew out of that of
Greece and maintained its influence in Italy unbroken
until the present day.
• From the Renaissance, revivals of Classicism have
kept alive not only the precise forms and ordered
details of Greek architecture, but also its concept of
architectural beauty based on balance and
proportion. The successive styles of Neoclassical
architecture and Greek Revival architecture followed
and adapted Ancient Greek styles closely.
History

• The history of the Ancient Greek civilization is divided

into two eras, the Hellenic and the Hellenistic. The
Hellenic period commenced circa 900 BC (with
substantial works of architecture appearing from
about 600 BC), and ended with the death of
Alexander the Great in 323 BC.
• During the Hellenistic period, 323 BC - AD 30,
Hellenic culture was spread widely, firstly throughout
lands conquered by Alexander, and then by the
Roman Empire which absorbed much of Greek
culture.
• Prior to the Hellenic era, two civilizations had existed
within the region, the Minoan and the Mycenaean.
• Minoan is the name given by modern historians to
the people of ancient Crete (c. 2800–1100 BC),
known for their elaborate and richly decorated
palaces, and for their pottery painted with floral and
marine motifs.
• The Mycenaean culture occurred on the
Peloponnesus (c.1500–1100 BC) and was quite
different in character with building citadels,
fortifications and tombs rather than palaces, and
decorating their pottery with bands of marching
soldiers rather than octopus and seaweed.
• Both these civilizations came to an end around 1100
BC, that of Crete possibly because of volcanic
devastation, and that of Mycenae because of
invasion from Dorian people of the Greek mainland.
This led to a period with few remaining signs of
culture, and thus often referred to as a Dark Age.
• The towns established by the Dorian people were
ruled initially by aristocracy, and later by “tyrants”,
leaders who rose from the merchant or warrior
classes. Some cities, such as Sparta, maintained a
strongly ordered and conservative character, like that
of the Mycenae. Athens, on the other hand, was
influenced by the influx of Ionian people from Asia
Minor. In this cultural diversity, the art of logic, and
with it the notion of democracy came to be
developed.
Art

• The first signs of the particular artistic character that defines

Ancient Greek architecture are to be seen in the pottery of
the Dorian Greeks from the 10th century BC.

• Already at this period the pottery is created with a sense of

proportion, symmetry and balance not apparent in similar
pottery from Crete and Mycenae. The decoration is precisely
geometric, and ordered neatly into zones on defined areas of
each vessel. These qualities were to manifest themselves not
only through a millennium of Greek pottery making, but also
in the architecture that was to emerge in the 6th century.
• The Kritios
Black figureBoy,
Amphora,
(c.480 Atalante
BC), typifies
painter
the tradition
(500-490ofBC),
free-standing
shows proportion
figures and style that are hallmarks of Ancient Greek art
• THE architecture of Greece has a value far higher
than that attaching to any of the styles which
preceded it, on account of the beauty of the
buildings and the astonishing refinement which the
best of them display. This architecture has a further
claim on our attention, as being virtually the parent
of all the nations of Western Europe. There is no
feature, no ornament, nor even any principle of
design which the Greek architects employed, that
can be said to be obsolete.
• Not only do we find direct reproductions of Greek
architecture forming part of the practice of every
European country, but we are able to trace to Greek
art the parentage of many of the forms and features
of Roman, Byzantine, and Gothic architecture,
especially those connected with the column and
which grew out of its artistic use.
• Greek architecture did not include the arch and all
the forms allied to it, such as the vault and the dome.
Examples of both these features were fully within the
knowledge of the Greeks because they were features
of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Persian buildings.
Therefore they deliberately excluded them from
their buildings.
• Within the limits by which they confined themselves,
the Greeks worked with such power, learning, taste,
and skill that we may fairly claim that their highest
achievement—the Parthenon—is as near to absolute
perfection as any work of art ever carried out.
Religion
• The home of the gods was thought to be Olympus, the highest
mountain in Greece. The most important deities were: Zeus,
the supreme god and ruler of the sky; Hera, his wife and
goddess of marriage; Athena, goddess of wisdom; Poseidon,
god of the sea; Demeter, goddess of the earth; Apollo, god of
the sun, law, reason, music and poetry; Artemis, goddess of
the moon, the hunt and the wilderness; Aphrodite, goddess of
love; Ares, God of war; Hermes, god of commerce and
medicine, and Hephaestus, god of fire and metalwork.
Worship, like many other activities, was done in community,
in the open. However, by 600 BC, the gods were often
represented by large statues and it was necessary to provide a
building in which each of these could be housed. This led to
the development of temples.
• Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th
century BCE and continued through the
Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient
Greece was incorporated in the Roman
Empire. It dealt with a wide variety of
subjects, including political philosophy, ethics,
metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric,
and aesthetics.
• Many philosophers today concede that Greek
philosophy has influenced much of Western thought
since its inception - "The general characterization of
the European philosophical tradition is that it
consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." Clear,
unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek
and Hellenistic philosophers to Early Islamic
philosophy, the European Renaissance and the Age of
Enlightenment.
• Pythagoras, of Ionian descent, made of the
correspondence between mathematics and the
cosmos. He founded the school that sought to
reconcile religious belief and reason.
• Socrates, born in Athens in the 5th century BCE,
marks a watershed in ancient Greek philosophy.
• Plato was an Athenian of the generation after
Socrates.
• The Ancient Greeks perceived order in the
universe, and in turn, applied order and
reason to their creations. Their humanist
philosophy put mankind at the centre of
things, and promoted well-ordered societies
and the development of democracy.
• At the same time, the respect for human intellect
demanded reason, and promoted a passion for
enquiry, logic, challenge, and problem solving. The
architecture of the Ancient Greeks, and in particular,
temple architecture, responds to these challenges
with a passion for beauty, and for order and
symmetry which is the product of a continual search
for perfection, rather than a simple application of a
set of working rules
Public buildings: Temples

• The rectangular temple is the most common and best-known

form of Greek public architecture. The temple did not serve
the same function as a modern church, since the altar stood
under the open sky in a sacred area, often directly before the
temple. Temples served as the location of a cult image and as
a storage place or strong room for the treasury associated
with the cult of the god in question, and as a place for
devotees of the god to leave their offerings, such as statues,
helmets and weapons. Some Greek temples appear to have
been oriented astronomically.
The temple was generally part of a religious place known as
the acropolis.

According to Aristotle,

"the site should be a spot seen far and wide, which gives good
elevation to virtue and towers over the neighbourhood".

Small circular temples, tholos were also constructed, as well

as small temple-like buildings that served as treasuries
for specific groups of donors.”
• The Greek idea of a temple was different from that of the
Egyptians. The building was designed for external effect more
than internal.

• A comparatively small sacred cell was provided for the image

of the divinity, usually with one other cell behind it, which
seems to have served as treasury; but there were no
surrounding chambers, gloomy halls, or enclosed courtyards,
like those of the Egyptian temples, visible only to persons
admitted within a heavily guarded outer wall.
Temple plans
• The temple, often stood within some sort of
specified area, but it was accessible to all. It stood
open to the sun and air; it invited the admiration of
the passer-by; its most telling features is that the
best sculpture was on the exterior.
• The attention paid by the Greeks to the outside of
their temples offers a striking contrast to the practice
of the Egyptians, the Assyrians.
• The temple, however grand, was always of simple
form, with a gable at each end, and in this respect
differed from halls, courts, and chambers of Egyptian
temple.
• In the very smallest temple at least one of the gables
was made into a portico by the help of columns and
two pilasters.
• More important temples had a larger number of
columns, and often a portico at each end.
• The most important had columns on the flanks as
well as at the front and rear, the sacred cell being, in
fact, surrounded by them. It will be obvious from this
that the column, together with the superstructure
which rested upon it, played a very important part in
Greek temple-architecture.
• We find in Greece three distinct manners,
distinguished largely by a different series of
proportions, mouldings, features, and ornaments.
• The Greek orders are named the Doric, Ionic, and
Corinthian.