Region: Greece and its Mediterranean colonies
Period: Seventh century to first century BCE
Characteristics:
- Trabeated system
- Orders
- Peristasis
- Isolated temple
- Proportion
- Sculpture
Under the direction of the great statesman and military commander Pericles, the architects Ictinus and Callicrates and the sculptor Phidias were charged with the creation of a new Parthenon, dedicated to the patron deity of Athens, Athena (the previous temple having been destroyed by the Persians, ca. 480 BCE).
A huge three-stepped base was created on which was constructed a rectangular temple of seventeen columns on the north and south sides and eight on the east and west.
Inside, the cella (the central room of a temple) contained a colossal golden statue of Athena by Phidias, now long lost.
Phidias also oversaw the creation of sculpture that was integrated into the building itself: pedimental groups depicted Athena’s birth and her tussle with the god Poseidon; in the metopes were scenes of battles, between the gods and the giants, and between Greeks, Centaurs and Amazons; and the famous frieze, which ran around the top of the cella, showed a Panathenaic procession in honour of Athena.
- The ends of its base and entablature curve upwards slightly.
- The corner columns are slightly thicker than the others.
- All its columns make use of entasis to mitigate the illusion of concavity created by an exactly parallel shaft.
The geometric principles and human spirit inaugurated in the Parthenon would decisively shape Greek architecture as it moved from the Classical Age into the Hellenistic period.
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| Temple of Concordia, Agrigento, Sicily, fi fth century BCE |
Isolated temple: Constructed to house sacred cult statues of deities, Greek temples had interiors that consisted of variations of a discrete number of spatial configurations. People other than priests rarely entered temples, so these buildings were seen most often from afar. Their sites were carefully chosen and the temple was almost always oriented east–west. |
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Orders: The 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 of the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders has its own proportional system and symbolic attributes. |
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| Temple of Zeus, Cyrene, Libya, fi fth century BCE |
Peristasis: Greek temples were designed according to a specific number of spatial and columnar arrangements. Most striking are the variations of peripteral temples that made use of peristasis: a single or double row of columns forming an external envelope and providing structural support. Peristasis is seen, for example, in the Temple of Zeus at the important Greek colony of Cyrene. |
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| Temple of Hera, Paestum, Italy, mid sixth century BCE |
Trabeated system: Composed from a series of vertical posts and horizontal transfer beams, ancient Greek architecture is at its root a trabeated system. Its key difference in that regard from Egyptian, Minoan or Mycenaean prototypes is its architectural articulation, which emerges as a symbolic language integrated with a building’s proportional (and structural) logic. |
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| Great Altar of Zeus, originally Pergamon (now in Berlin), mid second century BCE |
Sculpture: The classical language generally, and Greek temples specifically, provided much scope for sculptural ornamentation in metopes, friezes and pediments, and also for freestanding sculptures, either inside a temple or atop its pediment, called acroteria. |
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| Parthenon, Athens, 447–438 BCE |
