GREEK ARCHITECTURE:

GREEK CIVILIZATION AND ARCHITECTURE:

GREEK CIVILIZATION PERIODS:

MINOAN AGE: 2000 BC - 1400 BC

MYCENAEAN AGE: 1100 BC - 600 BC

THE DARK AGES: 600 BC - 750 BC

ARCHAIC PERIOD 750 BC - 500 BC

CLASSICAL PERIOD: 500 BC - 336 BC

HELLENISTIC PERIOD: 336 BC - 146 BC

GREECE: was not a unified nation but a collection of city-states (poleis) that frequently formed alliances called leagues.

EARLY GREEK CIVILIZATIONS:

A. MINOAN CIVILIZATION (CRETE, 2000-1400 BC)

  • One of the earliest Mediterranean civilizations.

  • Developed on the island of Crete; named after King Minos.

  • Sea-faring; bulls were sacred.

MINOAN RELIGION:

  • Polytheists– worshipped many gods, including bulls, snakes, men, and women.

  • Bull leaping or bull fighting was both a religious ceremony and a sport.

MINOAN ART:

  • Frescoes– paintings done in wet plaster or cement.

  • Friezes – large horizontal paintings often found on walls

MINOAN ARCHITECTURE:

  • Palaces (e.g., Knossos) with advanced plumbing, drainage, and complex multi-level layouts.

  • Lack of defensive walls, suggesting a peaceful society.

  • Architectural feature: the Megaron (principal suite), set within a citadel.

    • PALACE OF KNOSSOS: were inscribed with Knosion or Knos on the obverse and an image of a Minotaur in the Labyrinth on the reverse, both symbols deriving from the myth.

      • THRONE ROOM (PALACE OF KNOSSOS): is the most important area of the palace.

      • MYCENEAN COLUMN: slender and tapered sharply downwards.

      • GRIFFIN: Bird headed lion

      • Minotaur: Bull

MINOAN BELIEFS & CULTURE:

  • Influenced Greek thinking, language, social organization, and economic pursuits

  • The Minoan culture is where Greek culture got its beginnings.

MINOAN DECLINE THEORIES: Theories include natural disasters (volcanic eruption) or invasions from the mainland.

B. MYCENAEAN CIVILIZATION ( MAINLAND GREECE, 1100-600 BC)

MYCENEA:

  • Union city of Minoans & Mycenaeans

  • Located at mainland Greece.

MYCENAEANS:

  • Named after the fortress city; Mycenae

  • Mycenae was also called The Peloponnesus

  • War-like people

MYCENAEAN RELIGION: Mixture of influences Minoan and local dieties or Gods.

  • 2 types of deities:

    • Nature Gods

    • Predecessors of Olympian gods and goddesses

MYCENAEAN ARCHITECTURE: Some architectural developments were also adapted from Minoans. Some were adopted from trade centers ex. Tyrins, Pylos, Thebes, Midea, Argos, Sparta, Athens, etc.

CHARACTERISTICS

  • Low Pitch or Roof

  • Stairway was developed for vertical circulation

  • MEGARON is the principal building type and major ceremonial space

    MYCENAEAN STRUCTURES:

  • Megaron

  • Tombs

  • Gateway

  • Dams for flood management

MEGARON:

Megaron (rectangular hall with central hearth, porch, and sleeping area), considered the ancestor of the Doric temple

MEGARON AREAS

  • Enclosed porch

  • Living area / court area

  • Thalamus / sleeping room

  • Main Domestic unit of the Myceneans

TOMBS:

Developed corbel arches and tholos (beehive-shaped) tombs.

MYCENEA TOMB:

  • TREASURY OF ATREUS/ AGAMEMNON: Mounded in a hillside, Transitional space; Dromos

  • THOLOS/THOLOI: A stone vaulted, shaped like an old fashion beehive. Pre-Roman Vaulted construction.

    • DROMOS- a Long deep passageway into ancient subterranean tomb

    • SHAFT GRAVE- Consisting of a deep rectangular cut into sloping rock a roof stone.

  • Grave Entrance

  • INTERIOR imitating the dome of heaven

GATEWAY: GATE OF LIONS

Iconic entrance with cyclopean walls, corbeled arch, post and lintel and also relief sculpture of some lions.

GATE OF LIONS:

  • Most Ancient Stone Sculpture in Europe

  • The space of the arch is filled by a triangular stone with relief sculpture of two lions.

  • Entrance to the citadel of Mycenae

4 METHODS OF WALLING SURFACE:

  1. CYCLOPEAN- A masonry made-up of huge stone blocks laid mortar.

  2. POLYGONAL– Masonry constructed with stones having polygonal faces.

  3. RECTANGULAR- Block of stone cut into rectangular shapes.

  4. INCLINED BLOCKS EG. CORBEL ARCH- a false corbeling courses from each side of an opening until they meet at a midpoint.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

HELLENIC PERIOD (336 BC - 146 BC)

  • Son of Philip II of Macedon: Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) assumed the kingship over the newly consolidated mainland Greece after his father’s death, continuing his expansionary policies.

ATHENS: capital and largest city of Greece; sprawls across the central plain of Attica that is often referred to as the Athens or Attica Basin.

  • Bounded by four large mountains:

    • Mount Aigaleo (West)

    • Mount Parnitha (North)

    • Mount Pentelicus (Northeast)

    • Mount Hymettus (East)

  • Acropolis: Upper city of Athens

  • Birth of democracy in Athens under Pericles

  • Athena: Patron goddess of Athens Phidias' statue of Athena Parthenos

  • Phidias, Athena Parthenos in the cella of the Parthenon on the Acropolis, 438 BCE

  • Model of chryselephantine Athena the statue lost of

  • 38 feet tall, gold and ivory, fully armed and holding Nike (victory) in her hand

  • Earliest recorded educational halls; Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum.

CHARACTERISTICS:

  • TRABEATED SYSTEM: Composed from a series of vertical posts and horizontal transfer beams. (post & lintel)

  • Symbolic language integrated with proportional and structural logic. (e.g. Temple of Hera I, Paestum, Italy)

  • Peristasis: Single or double row of columns ( e.g. Zeus at the important Greek colony of Cyrene)

  • Isolated Temples: Temenos (sacred landscape), east-west orientation. People other than priests rarely entered temples. (e.g. Temple of Concordia, Sicily)

  • Proportion: Defined plan and elevation, optical refinements to counter visual distortion. Mathematically based art (Pythagoras).

    • Numbers were an expression of fundamental language that linked humans and gods.

    • The absolute value of this quantity (≈ 0.618)

  • Sculpture: Metopes, friezes, pediments, acroteria

    • Seen in metopes, friezes and pediments and also for freestanding sculptures, either inside a temple or a top its pediment, called acroteria

    • Extraordinary ‘Gigantomachy’ frieze of the Pergamon Altar is one of the high points of Hellenistic sculpture, inextricably tied to its architectural setting

  • Architectural Planning: Urbanism and architecture overlap in Hellenistic cities (Priene, Pergamon, Alexendria, Dura-Europos, Delos, and Rhodes.); grid planning.

  • Order:

    • Most significant innovation of ancient Greek architecture and the principal components of a classical building, the orders are formed of a base, shaft, capital and entablature

    • Each has its own proportional system and symbolic attributes.

STRUCTURES INSIDE ATHENS:

  • Stele: Upright stone slab or pillar.

  • Agora: Political assembly ground/marketplace.

  • Prytaneion: Senate Hall.

  • Bouleuterion: Council Hall.

  • Arena/Stadium: Foot races, 50,000 spectators.

  • Hippodrome: Horse races.

  • Theater of Dionysos: Prototype of Greek theaters, 18,000 spectators. Parts include Cavea, Orchestra, Skene/Scene, Parados, Parascenia, Cercis, Diazoma.

  • Palaestra: Wrestling school.

  • Temples

TEMPLES:

  • TEMPLE OF HERA I, PAESTUM, ITALY: 550 - 520 BC

    • Two adjacent limestone temples dedicated to the Goddess Hera face east at the southern end of the Greek colony of Poseidonia (Paestum)

    • Purest surviving Doric temple, with refinements that has entasis.

    • Doric order temple.

  • Column Shaft: Bulge in the column shafts was known as entasis (tension), which metaphorically expressed a column’s function.

    • Entasis: convex curve in the column shafts to correct the visual illusion of concavity produced by a straight shaft.

    • Optical corrections: curved stylobate, entasis, and columns leaning inwards.

    • Columns are swelling (Entasis)

    • Columns are slightly leaning inwards (Inclination)

  • Architrave separated from the frieze by a sandstone string course

    • Was separated from the frieze by a sandstone string course, originally decorated with leaf like patterns

    • Ends of the backing blocks preserve the large cut ‘U’ shapes used to hold rope to lift the blocks into place

  • CAPITAL AT WEST END

    • Necks of the capitals are decorated with carved floral patterns offering parallels with north-west Greece

    • Rear of the temple, some capitals have further decoration, composed variously of lotus flowers, rosettes, tendrils and palmettes

  • PLAN

    • Present one of the earliest examples of the Doric order

    • Unusual in having an odd number of the columns across the short side

    • Placing a column in the center where one would expect intercolumnar space for central, axial entry

EVOLUTION: Originally the wooden roof beams were located behind the frieze! Transfer from wood to stone!

PARTHENON, ATHENS

  • Temple of Athena, grandest temple in Greece.

  • Ictinus and Callicrates were the chief builders, and Phidias was the chief sculptor.

  • Key plan of entablature

  • Cella / Naos: Sanctuary of Parthenon

TEMPLE OF ZEUS, OLYMPUS

  • Second grandest temple.

  • Theron the Chief Builder

TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS, ATHENS

  • Anthotius Ephipanes the chief builders

  • Cossutius the Architect

TEMPLE OF ARTHEMIS, EPHESUS

  • 3rd Grandest Temple and one of the 7 wonders of the world .

  • Deinocrates the Chief Builder and Scopa chief Sculptor

ERECTHEION, ATHENS

  • Caryatids: Female structural Support without basket.

  • Canaphorae: Female structural support with basket

GREEK ORDERS AND THE BUILDING ANATOMY:

  • Marcus Vitruvius Pollio aka Vitruvius

  • Most significant innovation: base, shaft, capital, and entablature Each with its proportional system and symbolic attributes

  • Components: Pediment, Entablature, Column/Colonnade, Crepidoma .

    • Pediment: Acroterium/ Antifixae, Raking Sima, Raking Geison, Tympanum, Horizontal Geison.

  • Doric Order: Masculinity, strength, solidity . Meander ornamentation . Features Triglyph, Metope, Taenia, Regula.

  • Ionic Order: Female proportions, Egg & Darts and Anthemion Palmette Ornaments . Features Volute, Dentils, Fascia, Torus, Scotia .

  • Corinthian Order: Features Cyma Recta, Ovolo, Modillion, Dentil, Ogee, Cyma Reversa, Astragal, Helix, Bell, Acanthus

Greek Temples: Parts of the Plan

  1. Crepidoma

  2. Pteroma

  3. Collonade

  4. Pronaos

  5. Naos (Cella)

  6. Epinaos

  • Cella/Naos: Statue of the God, storage space for donations.

    • Cella (Naos) with Statue of the God (sometimes separate room for statue, the Adyton).

    • Huge statues made of gold, ivory and precious stones. Statue oriented in axis towards altar outside.

    • Initially single nave only, later 2 naves (one colonnade in the center of the naos), later 3 naves (2 rows of colonnades) for proper placing of God’s statue.

    • Cella walls plain and simple, but may be decorated with elaborate Corinthian capitals

    • Also storage space for donations to the God. No windows, only source of light is main door when opened.

    • Sometimes semi-translucent roof of marble tiles for diffuse interior light.

    • Naos only rarely entered by few people, except during religious festivals and special occasions. Otherwise only accessed by priests

  • Pronaos & Opisthodomos: Antechamber and pendant at the back 20.

    • Antechamber (Pronaos), formed by protruding side walls of the naos (anten), divided by two columns in antis Pendant at the back (Opisthodom, but without door to cella) for aesthetic reasons

    • Opisthodom: Storage space of cult regalia and temple treasure

  • Pteron & Peristasis: Colonnade around the cella, used as lobby and for processions.

    • Colonnade (Pteron) around the cella, forming a hallway (Peristasis), used as lobby and for processions

TWO WAYS DESCRIBING GREEK TEMPLES:

  • According to the numbers of columns on the entrance.

  • By Arrangement of exterior columns or “STYLE”

    • Distyle

    • Tristyle

    • Tetrastyle

    • Pentastyle

    • Hexastyle

    • Hepastyle

    • Octastyle

    • Enneastyle

    • Dodecastyle