Ancient Greek architecture is a very special source for classicism. Greek’s classical style of arcitecture has been revived by veriaty of cultures, obtaining nearly universal acceptance. Classical architecture represented either one of the political ideas: egalitarianism of Greek democracy or the authoritarian order of Helenistic tyrannies and the Roman Empire that followed.
The Greek City, polis, produced a democratic process of rule so need for the spaces of dialogue shaped the buildings of classical Athens. The agora, the stoa , the senate house and the hillside theater enabled exchanges of opinion. Even the temple’s proportions were decided by public debate.
After the declain of democratic Athens, they continued to improve on classical style for the various exponents of Helenism. Alexander the Great’s goal was to unite the world into a single empire and as he tried to turn the humanity to Hellenism he relied on the classical architecture. The Greek city states developed a unique form of government ; Their rule by public assembly is exceptional for its direct participation. Instead of big palaces and tombs for tyrants and hierarchical temple compounds like in Egypt, Assyria and Persia, the Greeks designed open public spaces with a few colonnaded buildings for citizen meetings.
Their system of living eliminated the power struggles of dynasties, tribes and clans. During 8th century BCE the Greeks began to revive their cities through synoikismos (living together). And this required open public spaces and accesible public buildings.
The fragmantation of their chobby landscape encouraged independent , self-managed cities . A lack od arable land limited Greek agriculture , so colonization spreaded through Italy and Sicily resulting in important urban centers (such as Neapolis and Syracuse). There were debates over urban form and institutions. So the Greek planners and politicians developed reproductible methods of orthogonal planning as well as guaranteeing justice to a diversified class structure.
Athens produced the most influential models of Greek architecture and urbanism. The villages at the base of Acropolis united through synoikismos. They thought to keep the balance between citizens and provide democracy and in conclusion acropolis meaning ”head of the sky” was more appropriate for the gods than a place for citizens.
The agora (meaning gathering)served as the prime public space for the Greek polis. It was an indeterminate void in the middle of the city. The Athenian Agora was about half the area of the temenos of the Entermenanki in Babylon. This setting served as the city’s space of imformation. The emptiness of the Agora and its lack of architectural definition had the opposite effect of the fullness and prescribed sequences of imperial palaces. Socially, the open space of the Greeks proved more interactive than the cult space of the Processional Way in Babylon.
The major streets of Athens crossed the Agora, providing a variety of activities such as market functions, religious ceremonies, athletic events and theatrical performances. Male dominans could be seen through the guardian herms, pillars with human heads and erect phalluses.
At the northern edge of Agora the open-air Altar to the Twelve Gods welcomed political refugees seeking sanctuary. Terracotta conduits and drains served a fountain house, built on the southeast edge in the late sixth century. Athenians improvised theatricals in the Agore while using temporary wooden bleachers until a stone theater was constructed in the fourth century.
Building types increased as the complexity of Athenian government increased. Pryraneion (the city hall) housed the city’s methaporic hearth. Skias (a cylindrical tholos structure) served as a dining hall. Strategeion stood as a chamber for debating military policies. A senate house, Bouleuterion , similiar to the square hypostyle rooms in the Persian palace at Persepolis.Open porticoes, called stoas, loosely framed the edges of the Agora. The Royal Stoa had four tiered columns to hold up the crest of the gabled roof.
Political communities met in the Agora before but later a larger, undistrubed setting was required. So, they cleared and leveled the great terrace of the Pnyx. This acoustically calibrated shelf anticipated the seating of Greek theaters.
The Greek grid appeared in the seventh century, to mainly control the future growth. They used the per strigas scheme to plan colonial cities such as Paestum in southern Italy as way of orthogonal planning in Egyptians. The grid determined the size and shape of the buildings.
In Hippodamus’ ideal city plan he formed a grid according to a rigorous geometrical formula, dividing the square into quarters which were further divided more, leaving urban blocks suitable for six courtyard houses. his hometown closely corresponded to this theory. Starting with the L-shaped Harbor Stoa, the city built colonnaded courtyards, plazas, fountains, and temples at its monumental core, forming a special route of expanding and contracting public spaces.
Priene, another colony, was rebuilt a century later with a more tightly integrated plan. Here, the prytanelon, the bouleuterion, the theater and the temple were fit carefully into a staggered pattern within the geometry of standard blocks. Priene was on a slope which caused a series of dynamic relationships between parts also caused them to overlook eachother. This geometric organization of the polis provided a controlled social experiment.
The Greeks built their colony’s houses (oikos) comfortably but without distinction. The houses of Olynthus displayed remarkable uniformity similiar to modern row housing. The oikos gathered around a veranda (pastas), a semienclosed corridor somewhat like a stoa, set between the court and the rooms. It provided naturally cooled living spaces. The colonical plan for the oikos implied that a well-governed city was only as good as a well-organised household.
The Greeks usually sited their temples in remote, associating the landmark with the legends of their gods. Their design is shown off by wrapping its volume with beautifully crafted colums, creating a play of light and shade against the solid inner core. There are three column styles in temples: Doric, Ionic or Corinthian. The diameter of the column established the module to measure all the other dimensions. The Doric order, was typically six modules high and two modules of intercolumniation between one and the next.
Doric and Ionic represented specific zones of influence in the Greek world. The mainland and western colonies preferred the Doric order. A doric temple such as the second temple Hera at Paestum carried six columns on the short sides and fourteen columns on the long. A ionic order style temple such as the TEmple of Artemis at Ephesus, eight columns across and twenty deep. On the Corinthian style the temples such as Temple pf ApolloEpicurius at Bassae. the temple’s exterior columns were Doric, the imterior chamber, or cella, was lined with versions of Ionic columns.
Greek temples were painted with colors as strong as those on the ziggurats. They were designed in a way that the marble would shine in the light and above the architrave they painted the friezes with blue trigiyohs and red metopes.
Greek temples’ style changed slightly when architects introduced visual correctives known as ”refinements”. They arched the ground plane of the temple platform towards the center so that the straight lines seem to deflect when seen from a distance. Doric columns taper upward and swell with entasis. The vertical fluting of the shafts also helped to convey the idea of compression. Often, on Doric temples the intercolumnation at the corner columns were narrower, to give visual strength to the corners and compensate for the awkward allignment of the triglyphs in the frieze.
The Greek temples appeared to be made of identical parts, but no two were alike.
My Way To Arch 