Classical architecture lecture synopsis

1. Classical architecture started in Ancient Greece c500BC-200BC and Rome and its
empire c200BC-500AD
2. There were 2 aspects of the classical style:
buildings aimed at harmony, by being by based on a carefully worked out sense of
proportion, using mathematical ideas such as geometrical forms and the Golden
Mean (1:1.618). The whole building was carefully planned before building started,
based on modules measured in units which derived from half the width of the base
of a column.
Integral to every classical building, whether for structural purposes (Greek) or
purely for decoration (Roman) was the use of Orders columns and their
associated entablatures. The Greeks invented the first 3 orders
Doric,
Ionic
and
Corinthian.

The Romans added

Tuscan

and developed Corinthian further into what later

Renaissance architects described as Composite
Corinthian

Each Order was considered to have a different character and was seen as suitable
for different types of building, e.g. Tuscan for stable block, Corinthian (the Romans
favourite style) for more splendid buildings. Doric architecture probably started as
a stone copy of a basic post and lintel wooden building. Above the columns the
entablature contained metopes and triglyphs reminiscent of lintels and rafter
ends.

The basic design of a Greek temple was simple a small interior room,
surrounded by a walkway, with the edge of the roof held up by a line of columns.
The whole temple stood on a set of steps, and could be approached from any
direction. By contrast the Roman temple stood on a platform, could only be
reached from the front, and often had columns only at the front forming a porch.

Greek
Roman
The Romans invented the mass production of bricks and the use of concrete and
mortar. This made it possible for them to build multi story buildings of huge size
such as the Baths of Diocletian and the Colosseum. The need for such large multistoried, showy buildings in Rome itself was a political one by impressing the mob
and keeping it occupied, to keep it quiescent and loyal. Bricks and mortar, together
with the invention of curved vaults based on the arch made it possible to cover
enormous roof spaces, and to create concrete domes as at the Pantheon.
Although the 5 Orders no longer had a structural purpose, Roman architects, such
as Vitruvius still felt them to be essential for any well designed building. This can
be seen in the Colosseum, where the 3 Greek orders decorate the outside of the
building and the Basilica of Maxentius where they are used to decorate the inside
of the building.

The Pantheon
The Colosseum
The Basilica of Maxentius
The use of concrete to build walls and columns was developed in 3 stages:

Tufa
pebbles

Opus incertum

brick
Tufa cut
squares
Opus reticulatum

Opus testaceum

The Triumphal arch is another Roman form,

much copied in later years.

In 410 AD Rome was sacked, and the last Emperor died in 476AD. The Empire in the
East continued in the form of the Byzantine Empire, with its own developing forms of
architecture. The western half disintegrated politically, Rome shrank to a fifth of its
former size. Political and economic power during the Dark and Middle Ages was
centred on the countryside rather than in towns, and so the need to build big to please an
urban mob disappeared, together with the secrets of brick and concrete production. The
architectural style which followed, Romanesque, copied Roman motifs, but without the
knowledge of the theories of proportion which underpinned it, and the materials which
made it possible. During the Middle Ages a new Gothic style emerged in France, coming
to dominate much of northern and central Europe and even parts of southern Europe for
3 hundred years.
But from the 15th century there was a renewed interest in Roman remains, often
remarkably intact, which coincided with the re-discovery of the theories of Vitruvius.
From the 17th century an interest in exotic travel to Italy and eventually to Greece
stimulated an increasingly scholarly approach in northern Europe to Classical
architecture and a greater understanding of its intellectual theories. Classical architecture
now became the only acceptable style in most of Europe. With the growth of European
Empires the classical style was now exported to all corners of the globe. Classical
architecture, mainly based on Roman architecture now became the favoured style of the
first American citizens. It was used for purposes undreamt of by the Romans and
Greeks, including railway stations, country house ornaments, and was even favoured by
dictators, seeing the Roman style as a suitable expression of power, and machismo. The
revival of Greek architecture had to wait until the Turks left Greece, making it accessible
to western tourists. Greek style building became fashionable in England and especially
in Scotland during the 1820s to the 1840s, and is often called neo classicism.
But Classical architecture remains a style we have all almost drunk in with our mothers
milk, its the favourite style of Prince Charles, and probably the style we are today most
familiar with, and most comfortable with.
All this, over 2200 years since the decline of Greece, and 1600 years since the sack of
Rome.