Greece I

History of World Architecture I

Ten books on architecture

• Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

• 16-14 BC

• explains greek architecture

• described ancient understanding that the circle and square derived from the human form

  • architecture was derived from the human form

  • Da Vincis famous illustration of vitruvian man shows how shapes work together

Plates of primitive buildings from sir william chambers a treatise on civil architecture

• london

• 1759

• postulated on the origins of buildings with the early hit translated into stone forms of a temple

• theorized 2 forms of a hut that expressed the evolution of the orders

  • first was post and beam construction

  • second was gabled roof and rudimentary progenitors to the capital and base of the column

• treatise (book that explains everything you need to know about architecture) on civil architecture

• he argues the doric order was developed in wood, then was translated into stone

Discourses on Architecture

• eugene emmanuel viollet le duc

• paris 1872

• said doric order is a new invention and was conceptualized in stone

  • called doric an ideal invention

  • fulfilled his belief that architecture should express structure

Ancient Greek World

• shared language and religious system, but are socially different

• hellenic greeks: modern understanding of the greeks

  • came from a mixture of dorian and ionian people

  • ionians from the east occupied parts of the mainland particularly athens

  • conceptualized their gods in human form

• began to build religious structure unlike the ealry aegeans

  • shrines they built originally served as houses for the gods to live in as they roamed the earth

Greek Temples

• set apart from nature, completely artificial, stand alone on stone base

  • everything is stone masonry

  • roof is tile masonry

• colonnade around full building perimeter

  • peristyle and approachable from all 4 directions

• central axis frame with even number of columns on both sides

  • east is entry side

• lack windows

• trabeated temple system

• crepidoma: series of steps

• stylobate: top step that hold the column

• stereobate: bottom 2 stairs

• cell/naos: main space, holds the god

• treasury room kept in the rear of the temple

Greek shrine, Votive clay model

• argos, greece

• 8th century BC

• depicts hellenic greek shrine

• basis for later greek temples

• megaron form

  • trabeated system, porch with columns

The Greek Orders

• highly sculptural

• basis of western architecture

• developed chronologically doric 1:6 Ionic 1:8 corinthian 1:10

Doric column

• uses mans foot and height proportion to design column

• dorus was a name of a king who inspired Ionian king

• masculine design

• sits on stylobate with no base

• shaft tapers upward, plain capital, concave carvings around its circumference (fluting) with sharp edge (aris)

Ionic column

• took the slenderness of a woman

• fluting and fillings (top) represent the gown of a woman

• volute, the ringlits on the side, derives from ringlets in womens hair

Corinthian column

• another feminine style

• traced back to callimacus

• based on a sketch by callimachus of basket placed by a maidens tomb which had weeds growing around it

• plant order, leafy top