Architectural tradition and design has the ability to link disparate

cultures together over time and space—and this

certainly true of the legacy of architectural forms
created by the ancient Greeks.
1. The architecture of ancient Greece is the architecture produced by the Greek-speaking

people (Hellenic people) whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese,

the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Anatolia 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
 Greek architecture influenced Roman architecture and architects in profound ways, such that
Roman Imperial architecture adopts and incorporates many Greek elements into its own
practice

 An overview of basic

building typologies

demonstrates the

range and diversity of

Greek architecture.
 GEOGRAPHICAL

 CLIMATIC

 HISTORICAL

 ART

 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

The mainland and islands of Greece are very rocky, with deeply indented coastline, and rugged
mountain ranges with few substantial forests.
The most freely available building material is stone. Limestone was readily available and easily worked
There is an abundance of high quality white marble both on the mainland and islands,
particularly Paros and Naxos.

This finely grained material was a major contributing factor to precision of detail, both architectural and
sculptural, that adorned ancient Greek architecture.
Deposits of high quality potter's clay were found throughout Greece and the Islands, with major deposits
near Athens. It was used not only for pottery vessels, but also roof tiles and architectural decoration.
 The climate of Greece is maritime, with both the
coldness of winter and the heat of summer
tempered by sea breezes.

 This led to a lifestyle where many activities took

place outdoors.

 The light of Greece may be another important factor in the

development of the particular character of ancient Greek architecture.

 The light is often extremely bright, with both the

sky and the sea vividly blue. The clear light and sharp shadows give a
precision to the details of landscape, pale rocky outcrops and
seashore.
This clarity is alternated with periods of haze that varies in colour to the light on
it. In this characteristic environment, the ancient Greek architects constructed
buildings that were marked by precision of detail.

 The gleaming marble surfaces were smooth, curved, fluted, or ornately

sculpted to reflect the sun, cast graded shadows and change in colour with the
ever-changing light of day.
Historians divide ancient Greek civilization into two eras,
1.the Hellenic period (from around 900 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC),
2. and the Hellenistic period (323 BC to 30 AD).
 During the earlier Hellenic period, substantial works of architecture began to appear around
600 BC.

 During the later (Hellenistic) period, Greek culture spread widely, initially as a result of
Alexander's conquest of other lands, and later as a result of the rise of the Roman Empire,
which adopted much of Greek culture.
Before the Hellenic era, two major cultures had dominated the region
1.The Minoan (c. 2800–1100 BC),
2.and the Mycenaean (c. 1500–1100 BC).
Minoan existed in ancient Crete, known for its elaborate and richly decorated palaces,
and for its pottery painted with floral and marine motifs.
The Mycenaean culture, which flourished on the Peloponnesus, was quite different in
character. Its people built citadels, fortifications and tombs rather than palaces, and
decorated their pottery with bands of marching soldiers rather than octopus and
seaweed.
Both these civilizations came to an end around 1100 BC,
The art history of the Hellenic era is generally subdivided into four periods:

1. the Protogeometric (1100–900 BC),

2. the Geometric (900–700 BC),

3. the Archaic (700–500 BC) and

4. the Classical (500–323 BC)
 The first signs of the particular
artistic character that defines
ancient Greek
architecture are to
be seen in the pottery.

 The major development

that occurred was in the
growing use of the
human figure as the major decorative
motif.
  The Classical period was marked by a rapid development
towards idealized but increasingly
lifelike depictions of gods in human form.

 Example of largest recorded statues of the age,

such as the lost chryselephantine Statues of Zeus
at the Temple of Zeus at Olympia and
Athena at the Parthenon, Athens,
both over 40 feet high, were once housed in them.

Statues of Zeus
at the Temple of Zeus at Olympia(recreation)

Recreation of the colossal statue of Athena, once housed in the

Parthenon, with sculptor Alan LeQuire
  The religion of ancient Greece was a form of nature worship that grew out of the beliefs of
earlier cultures.
 The natural elements were personified as gods of completely human form.
 The home of the gods was thought to be Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece.

 The most important deities were: Zeus, Hera, Athena, etc

 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

Modern model of ancient Olympia with the Temple of Zeus at the Recreation of the colossal statue of Athena, once housed in the
centre Parthenon, with sculptor Alan LeQuire
 The evolution that occurred in architecture was towards public building, first and
foremost the temple, rather than towards grand domestic architecture such as had
evolved in Crete

Types of buildings

 Main articles:Houses, Ancient Greek temple, Ancient Greek

theatre, Acropolis, Agora,Altar, Stoa,bouleterion and List of Ancient Greek temples
•The Greek word for the family or
household, oikos, is also the name
for the house.

•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.

• The ground floor rooms would have included

kitchen and storage rooms, perhaps an animal pen
and a latrine; the chief room was the andron— site Plan, Olynthus (Greece), House A vii 4, built after 432, before 34
of the male-dominated drinking party (symposion). B.C.E., from Olynthus, vol. 8 pl. 99, 100 and fig. 5, kitchen
The quarters for women and children (gynaikeion) complex c, d, and e; andron (k) (photo: Perseus Digital Library)
could be located on the second level (if present)
and were, in any case, segregated from the mens’
area. It was not

The House of Masks The House of Masks

  Many houses centred on a wide passage or "pasta"
which ran the length of the house and opened at
one side onto a small courtyard which admitted
light and air.

 Larger houses had a fully developed peristyle

courtyard at the centre, with the rooms arranged
around it.

Some houses had an upper floor

which appears to have been reserved
for the use of the women of the family.

City houses were built with adjoining walls and were divided into
small blocks by narrow streets. Shops were sometimes located in the rooms towards
the street. City houses were inward-facing, with major openings looking onto the
central courtyard, rather than the street
The construction material for
walls were sun dried clay bricks or wooden
framework.

Thatch and tiles for roofing with eaves which

overhung the permeable walls.

Houses of wealthy had mosaic demonstrating the

classical style.

The mosaic floor of a house at Delos

 The most recognizably “Greek” structure is the temple (even though the architecture of Greek
temples is actually quite diverse).
 The Greeks referred to temples with the term ὁ ναός (ho naós) meaning "dwelling;“

 Temple derives
from the Latin term,
templum.

The basic form of the

naos emerges as early as
the tenth century B.C.E.

"Hera II," c. 460 B.C.E., 24.26 x 59.98 m, Greek, Doric temple from
the classical period likely dedicated to Hera, Paestum (Latin)
previously Poseidonia, photo: Steven Zucker (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The majority of the religious buildings were concentrated in the Acropolis, or fortified city built on a mountain near the city. (This is Athens’
Acropolis)
 The earliest shrines were built from materials such as a wood and mud brick—
materials that typically don't survive very long.
 The basic form of the naos emerges as early as the tenth century B.C.E. as a simple,
rectangular room with projecting walls (antae) that created a shallow porch.
 This basic form remained
unchanged in its concept for
centuries. In the eighth
century B.C.E. Greek
 Architecture begins to make the move from ephemeral materials (wood, mud brick,
thatch) to permanent materials (namely, stone)
• Greek temples are often categorized in terms of their ground plan and the way in which the columns
are arranged.

• A prostyle temple is a temple that has columns only at the front, while an amphiprostyle temple has
columns at the front and the rear.
• Temples with a peripteral arrangement (from the Greek πτερον (pteron) meaning "wing) have a single
line of columns arranged all around the exterior of the temple building.

• Dipteral temples
simply have a double
row of columns
surrounding the
building.

•
One of the more
unusual plans is the
tholos, a temple with
a circular ground
plan; famous
examples are attested
at the sanctuary of
Apollo in Delphi and
the sanctuary of
Asclepius at
Epidauros.

sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi

Stoa
• Stoa (στοά) is a Greek architectural term that describes a covered
walkway or colonnade that was usually designed for public use

• Early examples, often employing the Doric order, were usually composed of a single level,
although later examples (Hellenistic and Roman) came to be two-story freestanding
structures. These later examples allowed interior space for shops or other rooms and often
incorporated the Ionic order for interior colonnades.

P. De Jong, Restored Perspective of the South Stoa, Corinth,

photo: American School of Classical Studies, Digital Collections
 Greek city planners came to prefer the stoa as a device for framing the agora (public market
place) of a city or town.
The South Stoa constructed as part of the sanctuary of Hera on the island of Samos (c. 700-
550 B.C.E.) numbers among the earliest examples of the stoa in Greek architecture.

Many cities, particularly Athens and Corinth, came to have elaborate and famous stoas.
In Athens the famous Stoa Poikile (“Painted Stoa”), c. fifth century B.C.E., housed paintings of
famous Greek military exploits including the battle of Marathon, while the Stoa Basileios (“Royal
Stoa”), c. fifth century B.C.E., was the seat of a chief civic official (archon basileios).

20th century reconstruction of the Stoa of Attalos in the Athenian Agora (original
c. 159-138 B.C.E.), photo: Steven Zucker (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
• Theatre:
– It was used for meeting and dramatic performances
– It consisted of several parts:
• Skene: place for the performance, it was circular
• Orchestra: first line of seats, for the chorus
• Seats: divided in areas to made it possible the movement
• Storage rooms (behind the skene)
– There were built on a hill
– They have perfect acoustic due to their location
– There were small theatres for reading poetry, they were called odeon.
 Bouleuterion
The Bouleuterion was an important civic
building in a Greek city, as it was the
meeting place of the boule (citizen
council) of the city.

These select representatives

assembled to handle public affairs and
represent the citizenry of the polis (in
ancient Athens the boule was
comprised of 500 members).

The bouleuterion generally was a

covered, rectilinear building with
stepped seating surrounding a central
speaker’s well in which an altar was , Priène (Turkey), c. 200 B.C.E
placed.
The city of Priène has a particularly
well-preserved example of this civic
structure as does the city of Miletus.
 Since blood sacrifice was a key component of Greek ritual practice, an altar was essential for these
purposes. While altars did not necessarily need to be architectural zed, they could be and, in some
cases, they assumed a monumental scale. The third century B.C.E. Altar of Hieron II at Syracuse,
Sicily, provides one such example. At c. 196 meters in length and c. 11 m in height the massive altar
was reported to be capable of hosting the simultaneous sacrifice of 450 bulls (Diodorus Siculus
History 11.72.2).

Alar of Hieron II, 3rd century B.C.E. (Syracuse, Sicily, Italy)

Altar of Hieron II, 3rd century B.C.E. (Syracuse, Sicily, Italy) Model of the Pergamon Altar (Altar of Zeus),
 The Greek stadium (derived from stadion, a Greek measurement equivalent
to c. 578 feet or 176 meters) was the location of foot races held as part of
sacred games; these structures are often found in the context of sanctuaries,
as in the case of the Panhellenic sanctuaries at Olympia and Epidauros.
Long and narrow, with a horseshoe shape, the stadium occupied reasonably
flat terrain.
 The gymnasium was a training center for athletes who participated in public
games.
 This facility tended to include areas for both
training and storage. The palaestra
was an exercise facility originally
connected with the training of wrestlers.
These complexes were generally rectilinear
Palaestra at Olympia, used
in plan, with a colonnade framing a central, open space. for boxing and wrestling
FEW OTHER PUBLIC SPACES OF GREEK
ARCHITECTURE

• Propylaea or porch was a monumental entrance to a

temenos or holy area
• Fountain houses
 egend:

•1: NE Propylon •17: Ex-voto of Achaeans

•2: Prytaneion •18: Ex-voto of Mikythos
•3: Philippeion •19: Nike of Paionios
•4: Heraion •20: Gymnasion
•5: Pelopion •21: Palaestra
•6: Nympheum of Herodes Atticus •22: Theokoleon
•7: Metroon •23: Heroon
•8: Zanes •24: Phidias' workshop and paleochristian basilica
•9: Crypt (arched way to the stadium) •25: Baths of Kladeos
•10: Stadium •26: Greek baths
•11: Echo stoa •27 and 28: Hostels
•12: Building of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe •29: Leonidaion
•13: Hestia stoa •30: South baths
•14: Hellenistic building •31: Bouleuterion
•15: Temple of Zeus •32: South stoa
•16: Altar of Zeus •33: Villa of Nero
• Doric:
– Columns
• Without basis
• Sharp-edged shaft
• Simple capital, without decoration

– Tablature
• Frieze divided
– Metopes
– Triglyphs

– Cornice
– Triangular pediment
• O f the three columns found in Greece, Doric columns are the simplest. They have a capital (the top, or crown) made of a
circle topped by a square. The shaft (the tall part of the column) is plain and has 20 sides. There is no base in the
Doric order. The Doric order is very plain, but powerful-looking in its design. Doric, like most Greek styles, works well
horizontally on buildings, that's why it was so good with the long rectangular buildings made by the Greeks. The area
above the column, called the frieze [pronounced "freeze"], had simple patterns. Above the columns are the metopes
and triglyphs. The metope [pronounced "met-o-pee"] is a plain, smooth stone section between triglyphs. Sometimes
the metopes had statues of heroes or gods on them. The triglyphs are a pattern of 3 vertical lines
In classic architecture t he t e r m
“ORDER” is employed t o
distinguish t h e varieties of
column and entablature which
were employed by t h e Greeks
and Romans in their temples
and public buildings.
 There are five famous orders: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and
Composite. But t h e main are only Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders.
• Doric columns are t h e
heaviest in appearance

• The capital is plain.

• The shaft is thick –

though i t loses some of
its mass over t i me .

• There is no base.
• These have greater
elegance.

• The capital has

distinctive volutes.

• The shaft is thinner

than its Doric
equivalent.

• A base is apparent.
• This is also a tall,
elegant form.

• The capital has

distinctive acanthus
leaf decoration.

• A base is also
employed.