Ancient Greece II

Agora

The open meeting place or market place in an Ancient Greek City.

Bouleuterion

An Ancient Greek assembly building or council hall.

Choragic Monument

A monument built to honor the winner of a choral contest.

Odeion

A small Ancient Greek or Roman theater, often roofed and used for musical performances.

Palaestra

An Ancient Greek wrestling school; or, more generally, an Ancient Greek or Roman building for athletic training.

Proskenion

(Proskene/Proscenium) A raised platform from which actors performed their lines in a Greek theater.

Skene

A backdrop building in a Greek theater.

Stoa

In Ancient Greece, a long, roofed portico with columns along the front and a wall at the back used for shops, meetings, or exhibitions.

Tholos

A circular building with a conical or vaulted roof, and with or without a peristyle.

Theater at Epidauros

Architect: Polykleitos the Younger

Media: Architecture / Limestone

Date: 350 BC / Hellenistic Period

Location: Epidauros, Greece

KEY FACTS:

1) Hemicycle Form = Horseshoe shape, used in Greek theaters for the seating tiered arrangement, also known as the theatron or koilon.

2) Size = One of the largest Greek theaters built, with a capacity of 14,000 spectators

3) Acoustics = The acoustics in this theater are OUTSTANDING - the Greeks mastered acoustics in open air theaters

4 KEY PARTS OF GREEK THEATERS:

1) SKENE = (Stage Building) Positioned opposite the open side of the hemicycle, this backdrop structure served as a dressing area and visual background for the actors.

2) PROSKENE = Also called the PROSKENIAN, was an elevated stage for acting in front of the SKENE (hence, pro)

3) ORCHESTRA = The circular dancing and performance floor for the chorus sat at the base of the hemicycle.

4) THEATRON = The horseshoe bowl seating. Was tiered and built into the side of the hill for natural structural support.

CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUE:

The Theatron was BUILT INTO THE SIDE OF THE HILL.

Choragic Monument of Lysikrates

Architect: Unknown

Media: Architecture / Limestone podium / Pentelic Marble / Earliest Surviving exterior Corinthian Columns

Date: 335 BC / Hellenistic Period

Location: Athens, Greece

PURPOSE:

Public monument, was an award for a choral festival of music. The patron was Lysikrates, who had a chorus of his own. Was FALSELY LABELED AS THE LANTERN OF DEMOSTHENES by JULIEN DAVID LE ROY in 1758, and also drawn at the incorrect scale

KEY FACTS:

1) Tholos = round form

2) Bronze trophy = on top, now missing

3) FIRST DISPLAY of the Corinthian Order IN EXTERNAL USE on a Greek structure

4) Engaged Corinthian Columns

INFLUENCE/REPLICATIONS:

1) Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney, Australia = The choragic monument was later built in the 18th and 19th centuries as garden monuments

2) U.S. Capital, Washington D.C. = Tholos dome, top is inspired by the Choragic Monument

Agora at Athens

Architect: Unknown

Media: Architecture

Date: Later 5th Century BC / Rebuilt 2nd Century BC

Location: Athens, Greece

PURPOSE:

- Marketplace, public forum, and civic and commercial center for the city

LAYOUT:

ORTHOGONAL SPACE, with lots of roads and entrances into and through the Agora

BUILDINGS:

1) STOA = Center for shops, almost like a strip-mall

2) BOULEUTERION = Civil political center

3) THOLOS = Public pavilion

EVOLUTION:

Over time, the Agora became more regularized and orthogonal

Stoa of Attalos II

Architect: Unknown

Media: Architecture

Date: 159-132 BC / Hellenic Greece

Location: Athens, Greece

Temple of Apollo Epicurius

Architect: IKTINOS (1 of arch. of Parthenon)

Media: Architecture

Date: 450-425 BC / Hellenic Greece

Location: Bassae, Greece

Aphrodite of Knidos

Architect: Sculptor: PRAXITELES

Media: Sculpture

Date: (original) 350-340 BC (we only have a Roman Marble Copy after the original)

Location:

- New type of sculpture for the goddess Aphrodite, because she is represented in the nude.

- Marks a changing in the rules

- Was a revolutionary, private commission

Laocoon and His Sons

Sculptors: ATHANADOROS, HAGESANDROS, AND POLYDOROS OF RHODES

Media: Sculpture / Carving / Marble

Date: Early 1st century AD

Location: Rome

HELLENIC GREECE = DRAMATIC, EMOTIONAL, LARGE PROPORTION AND SCALE, SUPERSIZED ARCHITECTURE.

HELLENIC GREECE CHARACTERISTICS

Dramatic, emotional, large proportion and scale, and supersized architecture.

Temple of Apollo

Architect: Paionios of Ephesos and Daphnis of Miletos

Media: Architecture/Temple

Date: Begun 313 BC

Location: Didyma, Turkey

DECASTYLE DIPTERAL TEMPLE

Hippodamian Grid or Hippodamian Plan

Named after Hippodamus of Miletus:

- Active 500 BC

- "Father of town planning"

- Student of Pythagorus

- Treatise on ideal city planning for 10,000 citizens

- Divided citizens into three classes: soldiers, artisans, and husbandmen (animals)

- Divided land into three parts: sacred, public, and private

- Established clear districts and zones

City Plan of Priene, Turkey, 4th century BC

- Built against hillside, with large city walls

- Gridded street plan: 6 streets E/W and 15 intersecting streets N/S

- Freedom of movement throughout city

- Zoned districts

- Order

Altar of Zeus

Architect: Unknown

Media: Architecture / Sculpture

Date: 181-159 BC

Location: Pergamon, Turkey

(Currently: Pergamon Museum, Berlin)

- Shrine/open-air altar

- Supersized

- Highly decorative

- Courtyard = huge altar

- Battle scenes, Zeus and Athena

- Battle Olympian gods and giants

- Athena battling Alkyoneos, detail of gigantomachy frieze

Athena battling Alkyoneos, detail of gigantomachy frieze

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