History Of Architecture IV
Greek Architecture Typologies
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Greek Architecture Prepared BY : Ar. Anusha Patil Ar. Anusha1 Patil
THE TYPOLOGIES OF GREEK BUILDINGS CONSISTED OF:
• TEMPLES.
• TOMBS.
• PUBLIC MEETING SPACES.
• STADIUMS.
• AMPHITHEATRES etc..
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THE GREEK TEMPLES
• They recognised separate areas as sacred to Thus the names:
a god, both in their towns and villages, and I. Distyle (2 columns)
in their surrounding country side. II. Tristyle (3 columns)
• Low lying sanctuaries were places used for III. Tetrastyle (4 columns)
cult practices in EASTERN GREECE. IV. Pentastyle (5 columns)
• In towns some sanctuaries were in walled V. Hexastyle (6 columns)
citadels. VI. Heptastyle ( 7 columns)
• All the temples were simple rectangular VII. Octastyle (8 columns)
buildings, By the classical period these VIII. Ennastyle (9 columns)
temples varied in detail. IX. Decastyle (10 columns)
• The most important element which stands
out in the Greek temples were their
columns. The porches in all the buildings
was embellished with columns.
• The columns were placed either between
the ends of the side walls or in a row in
front of them.
• The conventional description of the
numbers of columns consists of a Greek
numerical and the word “style”(stylos-
greek)
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Parthenon 4
Parthenon.
• The magnificent temple on the Acropolis of Athens, known as the Parthenon,
was built between 447 and 432 BCE in the Age of Pericles, and it was
dedicated to the city’s patron deity Athena. The temple was constructed to
house the new cult statue of the goddess by Pheidias and to proclaim to the
world the success of Athens as leader of the coalition of Greek forces which
had defeated the invading Persian armies of Darius and Xerxes. The temple
remained in use for more than a thousand years, and despite the ravages of
time, explosions, looting, and pollution damage, it still dominates the modern
city of Athens.
• The name Parthenon derives from one of Athena’s many epithets: Athena
Parthenos, meaning Virgin. Parthenon means ‘house of Parthenos’ which was
the name given in the 5th century BCE to the chamber inside the temple which
housed the cult statue. The temple itself was known as the mega neos or ‘large
temple’ or alternatively as Hekatompedos neos, which referred to the length of
the inner cella: 100 ancient feet. From the 4th century BCE the whole building
acquired the name Parthenon.
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Parthenon – design.
• The acropolis itself measures some 300 by
150 metres and is 70 metres high at its
maximum. The temple, which would sit on
the highest part of the acropolis, was
designed by the architects Iktinos and
Kallikratis
• Material:
• Pentelic marble from the nearby Mt.
Pentelicus was used for the building, and
never before had so much marble (22,000
tons) been used in a Greek temple.
• Pentelic marble was known for its pure white
appearance and fine grain. It also contains
traces of iron which over time has oxidised,
giving the marble a soft honey colour, a
quality particularly evident at sunrise and
sunset.
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Parthenon – design & dimensions.
Stylobate Stereobate
Octastyle temple
Doric & New Ionic
order of the
columns.
Cella/ Statue of
Inner cella treasury
naos Athena
• The larger room • Smaller room
• Houses the cult statue. • Was constructed to support the
• Surrounded by a Doric roof.
colonnade on three sides. • Ionic columns.
• Used as the city’s treasury
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Parthenon – design & dimensions
• The Parthenon is categorised under the octastyle temple.
• The Parthenon would become the largest Doric Greek temple, although it was innovative in
that it mixed the two architectural styles of Doric and the newer Ionic. The temple
measured 30.88 m by 69.5 m
• The outer columns of the temple were Doric with eight seen from the front and back and 17
seen from the sides.
• This was in contrast to the normal 6x13 Doric arrangement, and they were also slimmer and
closer together than usual.
• Within, the inner cella (or opisthodomos) was fronted by six columns at the back and front.
It was entered through large wooden doors embellished with decorations in bronze, ivory,
and gold.
• The cella consisted of two separated rooms. The smaller room contained four Ionic
columns to support the roof section and was used as the city’s treasury.
• The larger room housed the cult statue and was surrounded by a Doric colonnade on three
sides.
• The roof was constructed using cedar wood beams and marble tiles and would have been
decorated with akroteria at the corners and central apexes. The roof corners also carried
lion-headed spouts to drain away water.
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Parthenon – optical corrections.
• The temple measured 30.88 m by 69.5 m and was constructed
using a 4:9 ratio in several aspects.
• The diameter of the columns in relation to the space between
columns, the height of the building in relation to its width, and
the width of the inner cella in relation to its length are all 4:9.
• Other sophisticated architectural techniques were used to combat
the problem that anything on that scale of size when perfectly
straight seems from a distance to be curved.
• To give the illusion of true straight lines, the columns lean ever
so slightly inwards, a feature which also gives a lifting effect to
the building making it appear lighter than its construction
material would suggest.
• Also, the stylobate or floor of the temple is not exactly flat but
rises slightly in the centre. The columns also have entasis, that
is, a slight fattening in their middle, and the four corner columns
are imperceptibly fatter than the other columns.
• The combination of these refinements makes
the temple seem perfectly straight, symmetrically in
harmony, and gives the entire building a certain
vibrancy.
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Parthenon – the decorative sculptures.
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Parthenon – the decorative sculptures.
• The temple was unprecedented in both the quantity and quality of architectural sculpture
used to decorate it.
• No previous Greek temple was so richly decorated.
• The Parthenon had 92 metopes carved in high relief (each was on average 1.2 m x 1.25 m
square with relief of 25 cm in depth), a frieze running around all four sides of the building,
and both pediments filled with monumental sculpture.
• The metopes depicted the Olympian gods fighting the giants.
• The frieze ran around all four sides of the building (an Ionic feature). Beginning at the
southwest corner, the narrative follows around the two sides, meeting again at the far
end. It presents a total of 160 m of sculpture with 380 figures and 220 animals, principally
horses.
• The pediments of the temple measured 28.55 m in length with a maximum height of 3.45
m at their centre. They were filled with around 50 figures sculpted in the round, an
unprecedented quantity of sculpture.
• The statue of Athena : This was a gigantic statue over 12 m high and made of carved ivory
for flesh parts and gold (1140 kilos or 44 talents of it) for everything else, all wrapped
around a wooden core. The gold parts could also be easily removed if necessary in times
of financial necessity. The statue stood on a pedestal measuring 4.09 by 8.04 metres.
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Journey of THE PARTHENON
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Epidaurus
• Epidaurus was a small city (polis) in ancient Greece.
• Epidaurus was named after the hero Epidaurus, son of Apollo. Inhabited
since Neolithic times, the first significant settlement in the Mycenaean
period. Fortifications, a theatre and tholos tombs have been excavated dating as early as
the 15th century BCE.
The major elements / components of the Epidaurus.
• The first area that the visitor faces upon reaching the archaeological site is the entrance.
The entrance, which construction dates back to the Mycenaean times, consisted of two
galleries with 6 columns each, built in Ionian and Corinthian type.
• The second building is the temple of Asclepius, which construction lasted for 5 years. It
was a Doric temple where Asclepius statue was hosted. The statue was made by
Thrasymedes from Paros Island.
• Behind the temple there was the dome, which was the most famous building of the
sanctuary. Other buildings were the house of priests, the temples to Artemis, the temple
of Apollo and finally the theatre.
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Greek Architecture
The Theatre of Epidaurus
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The theatre of Epidaurus.
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The theatre of Epidaurus.
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The theatre of Epidaurus.
• The theatre of Epidaurus represents the finest and best-preserved example of a classical Greek
theatre. Even by today's standards, this monument stands out as a unique artistic achievement
through its admirable integration into the landscape and above all the perfection of its
proportions and incomparable acoustics.
• It was built in 330-20 BC and enlarged in the mid-2nd century AD.
• The overall 55 rows of seats rest on a natural slope and face the stage area set against a
backdrop of lush landscape.
• The theatre is marvelled for its exceptional acoustics. Any sound on the open-air stage, whether
a stentorian voice or a whisper, a deep breath or the sound of a match struck is perfectly audible
to all spectators, even in the topmost row of seats, that is, nearly 60 m away.
• The answer to what makes the sound transmit so well comes from recent scientific studies: The
arrangement of the stepped seating rows acts as an acoustic filter that deadens low-frequency
background sounds, such as the murmurs of the audience, while amplifying the high-frequency
sounds from the stage.
• Once again in use today, the ancient monument floods with theatre devotees during the annual
summer Festival of Epidaurus.
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The theatre of Epidaurus.
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Domestic architecture – Greek.
• The Greek word for the family or household, oikos, is also the
name for the house. Houses followed several different types.
• It is probable that many of the earliest houses were simple
structures of two rooms, with an open porch or "pronaos"
above which rose a low pitched gable or pediment. This form is
thought to have contributed to temple architecture.
• The construction of many houses employed walls of sun dried
clay bricks or wooden framework filled with fibrous material
such as straw or seaweed covered with clay or plaster, on a The House of Masks, Delos,
base of stone which protected the more vulnerable elements 3rd century BC
from damp.
• The roofs were probably of thatch with eaves which overhung
the permeable walls. Many larger houses, such as those at
Delos, were built of stone and plastered.
• The roofing material for substantial house was tile. Houses of
the wealthy had mosaic floors and demonstrated the Classical
style.
The mosaic floor of a house at
Delos
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Greek house typology:
• Houses usually were centered on a
courtyard that would have been the
Kitchen scene for various ritual activities;
& utility • The courtyard also provided natural
light for the often small houses.
• The ground floor rooms would have
included kitchen and storage rooms,
perhaps an animal pen and toilet;
• The chief room was the andron—
site of the male-dominated drinking
party.
Shops / courtyard • The quarters for women and
workshops children could be located on the
andron
second level and were, in any case,
segregated from the mens’ area.
• It was common for houses to be
attached to workshops or shops.
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Greek house typology:
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Greek house typology:
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House of Colline:
• The house has centred on a wide
passage or "pasta" which ran the
length of the house
• The pasta opened at one side onto a
small courtyard which admitted light
and air.
• The houses has a fully developed
peristyle courtyard at the centre,
with the rooms arranged around it.
• It houses an upper floor which has
been reserved for the use of the
women of the family.
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House of Masks:
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