Greek Architecture: The Orders, Geometry, and the Parthenon

Course Logistics and Module Structure

• Quiz Policy

  • Quizzes take place every typical Tuesday class.
  • Availability: Quizzes start at 11:00 and conclude at 11:10. This 10-minute window is the only time the quizzes are available.
  • Quizzes will not be reopened for any student for any reason.
  • There are no makeup assignments provided in this course.
  • Scoring: There are 13 quizzes throughout the semester, and only the best 10 scores are counted.
  • The three lowest scores (or missed quizzes) are dropped to account for illness, religious holidays, family emergencies, or oversleeping.
  • Study guides provided in each module correspond exactly to quiz questions and are considered essential preparation.

• Module Components

  • Weekly modules consist of two primary lectures.
  • Recorded Lectures: These are 15-minute supplementary videos embedded in Canvas pages that serve as a replacement for reading assignments.
  • Weekend House: A section focusing on a specific domestic structure corresponding to the weekly material. This week features the Oikos, the ancient Greek house.

Fundamental Principles of Ancient Greek Architecture

• Elemental Qualities

  • The architecture is characterized by highly distinguishable parts and extreme repetitiveness.
  • Systems of design remained consistent for hundreds of years. Temples built 1,000 years apart exhibit significant continuities.
  • The internal logic is so consistent that a single fragment of a column allows archaeologists to reconstruct an entire temple with high probability.
  • Greek contractors could build entire structures based on a simple verbal description of one or two attributes.

• Primary Structural Components

  • Column: The vertical structural support member.
  • Beam: The horizontal member spanning across the tops of columns.
  • Structural System: A set of columns supporting a spanning beam allows for the creation of usable space beneath the structure.

• Architectural Representation and Drawings

  • Plan (Floor Plan): A top-down view looking at the building as if the top were cut off. Columns appear as circles in this view.
  • Section: A cross-section drawing that looks through the building cut at a specific point.
  • Elevation: A drawing representing the front face or facade of a building without perspectival distortion.

Greek Temple Typology and Components

• Defining the Temple Type

  • Type: An architectural form that emerges over time as a consistent response to a basic set of needs.
  • Function: The temple is not a place for congregational worship (like a modern church) but rather a "house" for a god or goddess.
  • Access: Regular access to the interior was limited to priests, priestesses, or royalty. General visitors typically brought offerings (swag) to the deity.

• Key Temple Features

  • Colonnade: A row of columns standing side-by-side in a line.
  • Peristyle: A rectangular arrangement of colonnades that surrounds the perimeter of a temple.
  • Sella: The interior enclosed space in the center of the temple, located inside the peristyle. This space housed the statue of the god or goddess (e.g., Athena or Zeus).
  • Pediment: The triangular area at the end of a roof that slopes up on two sides. It is a feature of a gabled roof.
  • Entablature: The name for the horizontal beam area spanning the column tops, often elaborately carved.

• Physical Appearance and Evolution

  • While many ruins appear as white marble today, Greek temples were originally painted in bright colors and covered in statuary and sculptures that told cultural myths.
  • Wood to Stone Transition: Early temples (c. 1,100 BCE) were built of wood. Later stone temples (c. 1,000 BCE to 450 BCE) replicated the appearance of wood.
  • Triglyphs: Ornamental elements on stone temples that represent the ends of wooden beams that would have split radially in older wooden constructions.

The Three Architectural Orders

• The Doric Order

  • Attributes: The oldest, simplest, heaviest, and thickest order. Associated with power, war, and masculinity.
  • Proportions: The height is fixed at 7 diameters ($1:7$ ratio). For example, a column with a $2\,ft$ diameter would be $14\,ft$ tall.

• The Ionic Order

  • Attributes: More slender and elegant, associated with femininity. Recognized by "volutes," which are scrolly, spiral-shaped capitals at the top of the column.
  • Proportions: The height is fixed at 8 and a third diameters ($1:8.33$ ratio). A column with a $1\,ft$ diameter is $8\,ft\,4\,inches$ tall.
  • The "Frontality" Problem: Unlike the Doric, the Ionic column has a distinct front, back, and sides. Turning a corner in a rectangular peristyle causes a perfection issue because one corner volute must be twisted outward, creating an "asymmetrical ear" that the Greeks found imperfect. Eventually, Ionic columns were considered appropriate only for colonnades (lines), not peristyles.

• The Corinthian Order

  • Attributes: The tallest and most slender order, considered even more feminine than the Ionic.
  • Proportions: The height is fixed at 10 diameters ($1:10$ ratio).
  • Capital: Decorated with carvings of acanthus leaves (based on a literal plant). Because acanthus plants vary by region, this order introduced a level of variability that slightly contradicted the Greek goal of absolute consistency.

Geometry and Perfection: The Golden Section

• The Golden Section (Golden Ratio/Mean/Rectangle)
  • Definition: A rectangle where the ratio of the short side to the long side is approximately $1:1.618033988749$.
  • Construction: Starting with a square, bisect the bottom side. Place a compass at the center of the bottom side, draw a diagonal to a top corner, and use that radius to strike an arc. Extending the square to the end of that arc produces a Golden Rectangle.
  • Properties: A square plus a Golden Section equals a larger Golden Section. This relationship repeats infinitely.
  • Natural and Cultural Presence:
    • Nautilus shells and unfolding ferns follow the Golden Section spiral.
    • The Pentagram: All component parts of a 5-pointed star are based on Golden Section proportions.
    • The Fibonacci Sequence: A sequence where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones ($0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, \dots$). As the numbers increase, the ratio between them trends toward the Golden Section.
    • Western Music: Intervals between notes are conditioned by Greek understandings of this geometry. A piano keyboard layout reflects the Fibonacci sequence.
    • Modern Branding: The Apple logo (iPhone/Mac) is comprised entirely of circles derived from the Golden Section.

Optical Correction and Refinement

• Perception vs. Reality
  • The Greeks realized that large, perfectly straight lines on huge buildings appear to sag or curve to the human eye due to the curved lens and retina of the eye.
  • Optical Correction: To make a building appear perfectly straight, the Greeks introduced intentional, tiny curves into the structure.
  • Example: The base of a temple might curve upward only a few centimeters over a $30\,ft$ length to look flat from a distance.
  • Quote: "What is real seems false and needs correcting in order to seem true."

Case Study: The Parthenon and the Acropolis

• Site and Context

  • The Acropolis: A flat-topped, elevated rock outcropping in Athens that served as the city's temple precinct.
  • The Parthenon: The most important and "perfect" Greek temple, built in Athens after the improbable defeat of the Persian invasion (an army of up to 500,000 versus 30,000–50,000 Greeks).
  • Layout: Greek cities featured a wall, a sacred way (ceremonial path), a marketplace (Agora), and the elevated Acropolis.

• Visual Perfection and the "Three-Quarters View"

  • Archaeologists discovered a bronze disc in the ground at the Acropolis gateway. Standing there, a viewer sees the Parthenon in a perfect "three-quarters view."
  • The building is positioned so that the angle generated by the long side and the angle generated by the short side take up equal space in the viewer's field of vision, creating a sense of balance and rightness.

• The Sella and the Statue of Athena

  • The sella housed a massive statue of Athena in warrior mode (shield and spear).
  • Historic descriptions vary: some show her sitting, some standing, some with a roof, some without. This uncertainty exists because very few people were allowed inside to see it.

• The Narrative Sculptures (Metopes)

  • Triglyphs and Metopes: Sculptures between triglyphs acted like a "stone billboard" for a largely illiterate society.
  • The Centaurs and Lapiths: A myth depicted on the Parthenon. During a wedding between the Lapith king and an Athenian woman, the centaurs got drunk and tried to kidnap the bride. While the traditional myth has the Greeks winning, the Parthenon version shows the centaurs winning and carrying off the bride.
  • Warning Narrative: The ending is a cautionary tale of "eternal vigilance," suggesting that the forces of chaos (represented by centaurs or Persians) can win if the Greeks are not watchful.

• Destruction and the Elgin Marbles

  • Earthquakes and Wars: The building was once used as a gunpowder magazine by the Ottoman Turks. A Venetian cannon hit the gunpowder, causing a massive explosion.
  • Lord Elgin: In the 19th century, a British lord removed the sculptures (metopes/statuary) and took them to Britain. They are now in the British Museum and known as the "Elgin Marbles."
  • Repatriation Debate: The Greek government has requested their return for decades. Despite building a new museum in Athens specifically for them, the British have yet to return the artifacts.

Questions & Discussion

• Poll Question: What is a peristyle?
  • Results: 94% correctly identified it as a row of columns arranged in a rectangle. 6% incorrectly identified it as a series of arches spanning a river.
• Administrative Reminder: Students are encouraged to watch supplementary videos on Greek cities, the Erecthium, and the Temple of Athena Nike to prepare for the upcoming Tuesday quiz.