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GREEK ARCHITECTURE

INFLUENCES
Geographical
- The rugged nature of Greek peninsula and
its widespread islands, made
communications difficult. It was bounded
on 2 sides by black sea and the
Mediterranean sea, with Athens as its
center kingdom contains the upper city
known as the citadel
- Aegean has two cultures known as Minoan
which flourished in Crete under the
legendary King Minos of Knossos, and the
mainland civilization known as Mycenean,
after one of the great center Mycenae
- The Minoans were the first great culture of
Aegean civilization.
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INFLUENCES
Geological
Climatic
 mainland: rugged mountains made
communication difficult  between rigorous cold and relaxing
heat
 mountains separated inhabitants into groups,
clans, states  clear atmosphere and intense light
- conducive to creating precise and
 archipelago and islands: sea was the
inevitable means of trade and communications exact forms

 Marble – chief building materials, they also had  judicial activities, dramatic
ample supplies of building stones; facilitate presentations, public ceremonies
exactness of line and refinement of detail took place in the open air
 The famous variety of marble is the Pentelic
marble of Greece, found in the quarries of
Mount Pentelikon in Attica

INFLUENCES
Religious Greek religion:
Zeus = Jupiter
Aegean religion:  a highly developed Hera = Juno
form of nature Poseidon = Neptune
 started at primitive stage of nature worship Athena = Minerva
worship
 gods as Dionysus = Bacchus
 sacred bull and fertility goddess personifications of Demeter = Ceres
Rhea, the supreme deity natural elements, or Artemis = Diana
deified mortals Hermes = Mercury
 priestesses conducted religious Venus
Aphrodite =
rites, sacred games, ritual dances  each town had own Hephaestus = Vulcan
 worship on sacrificial altars, open- ceremonies, Ares = Mars
air enclosures, caves, small traditions Heracles = Hercules
chapels, household shrines  no regular
priesthood
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INFLUENCES
Social and Political
The four most common systems of Greek
Chief diversion were music, dancing, wrestling, government were:
boxing, gymnastic, and bull fighting often with
religious connection. Women took part in Democracy - rule by the people (male citizens).
hunting and more strenuous games, as well as Monarchy - rule by an individual who had inherited
in craftwork. Tyrannic, aristocratic, and his role.
democratic were the forms of government.
Pericles one of the leaders in Athens Oligarchy - rule by a select group of individuals.
Government in the ancient Greek world took Tyranny - rule by an individual who had seized
extraordinarily diverse forms across different power by unconstitutional means.
city-states. Political power could rest in the
hands of a single individual, an elite or in every
male citizen. Democracy - widely regarded as
the Greeks' greatest contribution to civilization.

INFLUENCES
History
 commercial and naval power - crafts, pottery, trade
 the Aegean civilization, the first great sea-power and communications produced a unity of culture and
in the Mediterranean economic stability
 born on the island of Crete Mycenaean or Helladic (1400 to 1100 BC)
 founded on trade with the whole eastern  continuation of Cretan ideas and craftsmanship
Mediterranean seaboard: Asia Minor, Cyprus,
Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Libya Hellenic Period (800 to 323 BC)
 also reached South Italy and Sicily  the "polis" or city-state emerged as the basis of Greek
society
Periods:
 federal unity between city-states due to common
 Aegean Period language, customs, religion
 civilizations on Crete and Greek mainland from  several forms of government: ologarchic, tyrannic,
earliest times until about 1100 BC democratic
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INFLUENCES
 under Pericles (444 BC to 429 BC), peak of Athenian Greek Philosophers
prosperity
1. Thales of Miletus (620 BC–546 BC)
 outburst of building activity and construction, art, law-
making, philosophy and science 2. Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC)

Hellenistic Period (323 to 30 BC) 3. Plato (427 BC–347 BC)

 Hellenistic Empire established, Greek civilization 4. Socrates (469 BC–399 BC)

extended 5. Pythagoras (570 BC–495 BC)
 shift to eastern part of the Mediterranean, west was 6. Zeno (490 BC–430 BC)
unimportant
7. Empedocles (490 BC–430 BC)
8. Anaximander (610 BC–546 BC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFRxmi4uCGo
9. Anaxagoras (500 BC–428 BC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQZOov9OXLE
10. Parmenides (560 BC – 510 BC)

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER: AEGEAN

DESCRIPTION echinus - convex or
projecting moulding,
 roughness and massiveness of resembling the shell of a
structure sea-urchin, sometimes
painted with egg and dart
CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM ornament
 buildings were constructed of rubble WALL
and rough stonework to dado height
Aegean masonry
 upper parts of double-framed timber techniques:
in-filled with brick or stone rubble
1.cyclopean wall - large
MATERIALS stones, no mortar, clay
bedding
 stone, gypsum, timber
2.polygonal wall - advanced
COLUMNS technique, Hellenic period,
no pith or tar
 capital had two parts: square abacus
3.rectangular wall - dowels
above and circular bulbous echinus
below
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AEGEAN
Examples on mainland:
HOUSES  single-storeyed house
on islands:  deep plan
 flat roofing  columned entrance
porch
 drawn together in
blocks  anteroom with central
doorway
 two to four storeys
high  living apartment or
megaron proper
 light admitted
through light wells  central hearth
 columns supporting roof
 thalamus or sleeping
room behind

AEGEAN: HOUSES

DWELLING TYPES D. Peristyle house - a Greek dwelling-type

whose open courtyard is surrounded by
A. Megaron – an early Greek or Mycenaean dwelling type; colonnades on all sides, often more
luxurious than a prostas or pastas house
single-storey dwelling with a central room and porticoed
entrance; columns support roof
- A long rectangular central hall in a Mycenaean dwelling or
temple, with an entrance at one end; originally evolving from
the Mycenaean dwelling type
B. Prostas house - a Greek dwelling-type entered from the
street via a passage to an open courtyard, around which all
spaces are arranged; the principal rooms are accessed via a
niche-like anteroom or prostas
C. Pastas houses - a dwelling-type from the classical period of
northern Greece, 423–348 BC, with a courtyard in the centre of
the south side and deep columned veranda or pastas affording
access to rooms Megaron Prostas house
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AEGEAN: HOUSES

Peristyle house
Prostas house
Pastas houses

AEGEAN: TOMBS

 rock-cut or chamber tombs

 tholos tomb

Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae

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AEGEAN: PALACES

Palace of King Minos, Knossos

AEGEAN: PALACES

Lion Gate, Mycenae

Palace at Tyrins Part of citadel palace of Agamennon;
Cyclopean walls of boulders weight of 5-6
tons were eased into alignment with pebbles
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AEGEAN: PALACES

Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae -

also called Tomb of Agamemnon,
a beehive, or tholos, tomb built
about 1350 to 1250 BC at
Mycenae, Greece

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER: HELLENIC

Description Materials Greek orders:

- Mostly religious architecture - Timber - Capital
- “Carpentry in marble” – - Stone - Base
timber forms imitated in
stone with remarkable - Terra cotta - Column shaft
exactness Columns - Horizontal entablature
Construction System (architrave, frieze, cornice)
- At first, columns and
- Columnar and trabeated entablature were made Original: Doric & Ionic – from
of timber with terra two main branches of Greek
- Large spans could not be cotta decorations race
achieved, unless lines of
internal columns were - Then stone in 600 BC Corinthian – purely decorative
supplied, sometimes in two order
superimposed tiers
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ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER: HELLENIC

Decoration
Certain refinements used to correct optical
illusions:
- Horizontal lines built convex to correct
sagging, vertical features inclined inwards to
correct appearance of falling outwards
- On columns, entasis was used, swelling
outwards to correct appearance of curving
inwards
Other decorations:
- Sculptures used on most important buildings
- Color used in details, large flat spaces left
plain-colored
Entasis - a slight convex curve in the shaft of a
- Stucco finished for stone structures column, introduced to correct the visual illusion
- Mural painting of concavity produced by a straight shaft.

HELLENIC: EXAMPLES

Temples
- Chief building type
- Earliest ones resembled
megaron in plan and
construction
Houses
- Primitive
- Surround citadel
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HELLENISTIC: ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER

Description Columns
- Provided inspiration for Roman building - Greek orders: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian
types
Openings
- Not religious in character, but civic
- No windows
- Dignified and gracious structures
Methods of Natural Lighting:
- Symmetrical, orderly
1. Clerestory – situated between roof and
Construction System upper portion of wall
- Columnar and trabeated 2. skylight - made of thin, translucent marble
- Arches began to appear over wall openings 3. temple door, on the pronaos on the east
- roof truss appeared, enabling large spaces
to be unhindered by columns

HELLENISTIC: ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER

Decoration Cavetto
Mouldings:
Scotia
- architectural device, which with light and
shade, produce definition to a building Torus
- refined and delicate in contour, due to Bird's Beak
fineness of marble and the clarity of
atmosphere and light
Corona
Types of Mouldings:
Orientation
Cyma recta
Cyma reversa (Ogee) - entire groups of
buildings laid out
Ovolo (Egg-like) symmetrically and
The Fillet orderly
Astragal or Bead - doors oriented towards
east
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES

Acropolis at Pergamon

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - ACROPOLIS

Acropolis – “City in the

Height.” in Classical
architecture, a city
stronghold or fortress
constructed on higher
ground than surrounding
urban fabric
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

Temenos – the sacred area or

enclosure a classical Greek
temple
Propylaea – a monumental
gateway to a sacred enclosure,
fortification, town or square.
Parthenon – Athens, Greece –
Ictinus and Callicrates – built
from 447-438 B.C. in honor of
Athena, the city’s patron
goddess. – used the proportion
2n+1 in determining the number
of columns on the sides of a
temple (n= number of columns at
front)
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

Parthenon
Optical corrections
- Entasis – a slight convex curve
in the shaft of a column
- The stylobate curves upward
- The columns taper toward the
top
- the columns at the corners
angle inwards and are thicker
than the others
- The column flutes deepen
toward the top

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

temples planned by number of columns:

hemostyle, distyle, tristyle, tetrastyle, pentastyle,
hexastyle, heptastyle, octastyle, enneastyle, decastyle,
dodecastyle
temples planned by column arrangement:
in-antis - between anta and the front
amphi-antis - at front and rear
prostyle - portico at front
amphi-prostyle - porticoes at front and rear
peripteral - on all sides
pseudo-peripteral - flanking columns attached to naos
dipteral - double line of columns surrounding naos
pseudo-dipteral - like dipteral, but inner columns
omitted on flanks of naos
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

Number of Columns
1 – hemostyle
2 – distyle
3 – tristyle
4 – tetrastyle
5 – pentastyle
6 – hexastyle
7 – heptastyle
8 – octastyle
9 – anneastyle
10 – decastyle
12 - dodecastyle
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

Intercolumnation
The systematic
spacing of columns
expressed as
multiples of column
diameters
1.50D – Pycnostyle
2.00D – Systyle
2.25D – Diastyle
4.00D – Araeostyle

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

Doric Temples
 had a timber origin
 columns = began as tapered tree trunks
 architrave = lintel supporting cross-beams,
whose ends are covered with triglyphs on
frieze
 bottom of cornice = wooden plate receiving
rafters
 mutules = rafter ends, also following roof
slope
 guttae = replica of wooden pins driven
through mutules to secure roof boarding
 corona = wooden fascia
 metopes = spaces between triglyphs
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES
Doric column:
 Oldest, simplest and most massive of the three Greek
orders
 without base, directly on crepidoma
 height (including capital) of 4 to 6 times the diameter
at the base
 shaft diminishes at top from 3/4 to 2/3 of base
diameter
 divided into 20 shallow flutes separated by arrises
Doric entablature:
 height is 1 and 3/4 times the lower diameter in height
3 main divisions:
 architrave, principal beam 2 or 3 slabs in depth
 frieze, alternating triglyphs and metopes
 cornice, mouldings

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

The Parthenon, Acropolis

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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

Temple of Hera, Paestum

Temple of Athene Alphaia, Aegina

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES - TEMPLES

 volute or scroll capital (derived
from Egyptian lotus and Aegean
art)
 evolved from timber forms:
architrave = broad timber plates
 triglyph beams more numerous
than at Doric

Temple of Nike Apteros, Athens

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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES -
TEMPLES

The Erectheion, Acropolis

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES
Ionic column:
 more slender than Doric
 needed a base to spread load
 height was 9 times the base diameter
 have 24 flutes separated by fillets
 upper and lower torus
Ionic entablature:
 height was 2 and 1/4 times the diameter of column
two parts:
 architrave,with fasciae
 cornice, with dentils representing numerous cross-
beams
 richly ornamented frieze
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES -
TEMPLES
 Decorative variant of Ionic Order
Corinthian column:
 base and shaft resembled Ionic
 more slender
 height of 10 diameters
 capital: much deeper than Ionic, 1 and 1/6 diameters high
 capital invented by Callimachus, inspired by basket over
root of acanthus plant
Corinthian entablature:
 same as Ionic
3 parts:
 architrave,
 frieze,
 cornice, developed type with dentils

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES

Figured Columns
Caryatid – also Kore, a carved statue if a
draped female figure which functions as a
column
Canephora, Canephore, Canephorum,
Kanephoros – ‘basket-carrying’; carved
statuesque column of a draped female
figure carrying a basket, or with a basket
on her head.
Atlas, Telamon, Atlantes (plural)– a
massive carved statuesque stoop of male
figure, often serving as a columnar
support for a pediment.
Herm, Herma, Hermae (plural) – a square
tapered column capped with the carved
head, bust or torso of a figure, usually
Hermes; originally used by the Greeks as
a bopundary marker, later as decoration.
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES – CIVIC BUILDINGS

Agora – a market or meeting place in a Greek city, the

hub of public life where the most important public
buildings were situated.

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES – CIVIC BUILDINGS

Theatron – designed for the presentation of
plays in which choral songs and dances
were prominent features.
- Open air usually hollowed out of the
slope if a hillside with a tiered seating
area around and facing a circular
orchestra backed by the skene- a building
for the actor’s use
• Parts of a Theater:
• Orchestra
• Cavea
• Skene
• Parados
• Paracenia
• Procenium
• Episcenium
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES – CIVIC BUILDINGS

Stoa of Attalos, Athens Prytaneion of Panticapaeum, Ukraine

Stoa – an ancient Greek portico, usually detanced and of Prytaneion – senate house; A public town hall for the
considerable length, used as a promenade or meeting citizens of ancient Greece, containing state banquet
place around public places halls and hospitality suites

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES – CIVIC BUILDINGS

Bouleuterion, Priene Ephesus Odeon, Turkey

Bouleuterion – council chamber with rows of stepped Odeon – A roofed theater building in antiquity, especially
benches surrounding a central platform one for the performance of vocal and instrumental music
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HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES – CIVIC BUILDINGS

Nemea Stadioin, Greece

Hippodrome, Tyre, Lebanon
Stadion – an ancient Greek elongated sports
venue with rounded ends, surrounded on all sides Hippodrome – an open or roofed track or arena for
by banked spectator stands; venue for foot racing chariot and horse racing in ancient Greece

HELLENISTIC: EXAMPLES – CIVIC BUILDINGS

Pompeii Gymnasion

Palaestra, Vaison-la-Romaine Gymnasion – an ancient Greek center for sports, with

buildings, playing areas and baths
Palaestra – wrestling house; A place used for the https://www.alaturka.info/en/culture/definitions/4242-
instruction and practice of wresting and athletics
gymnasion-once-a-place-of-physical-exercise