Ancient Greek architects strove for the precision and excellence of workmanship that are the hallmarks of Greek art in general. The formulas they invented as early as the sixth century B.C. have influenced the architecture of the past two millennia. The two principal orders in Archaic and Classical Greek architecture are the Doric and the Ionic. A third being the Corinthian. Although the ancient Greeks erected buildings of many types, the Greek temple best exemplifies the aims and methods of Greek architecture. The temple typically incorporated an oblong plan, and one or more rows of columns surrounding all four sides. Ancient Greek Architecture The vertical structure of the temple conformed to an order, a fixed arrangement of forms unified by principles of symmetry and harmony A third order of Greek architecture, known as the Corinthian, first developed in the late Classical period, but was more common in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Corinthian capitals have a bell-shaped echinus decorated with acanthus leaves, spirals, and palmettes. There is also a pair of small volutes at each corner; thus, the capital provides the same view from all sides. Corinthian (Later, the Romans added the Tuscan, a simplified Doric, and the Composite, combining the Ionic with the Corinthian.) The Corinthian capital, an elaborate variation of the Ionic capital, is decorated with acanthus leaves (an herbal shrub) and sometimes volutes on both sides. [The story of the Corinthian capital is that an architect saw a basket that had been left unattended while an acanthus plant grew up around it. Pleased by the decorative effect, he copied it for a capital.] rchitectural/ClassicalArchitecture/ArchitectureGreekTemple/Arc hitectureGreekTempleStyle.htm Although the ancient Greeks erected buildings of many types, the Greek temple best exemplifies the aims and methods of Greek architecture. Although the ancient Greeks erected buildings of many types, the Greek temple best exemplifies the aims and methods of Greek architecture. The temple typically incorporated an oblong plan, and one or more rows of columns surrounding all four sides. The vertical structure of the temple conformed to an order, a fixed arrangement of forms unified by principles of symmetry and harmony. There was usually a pronaos (front porch) and an opisthodomos (back porch). The upper elements of the temple were usually made of mudbrick and timber, and the platform of the building was of cut masonry. Columns were carved of local stone, usually limestone or tufa; in much earlier temples, columns would have been made of wood. Marble was used in many temples, such as the Parthenon in Athens, which is decorated with Pentelic marble and marble from the Cycladic island of Paros. The interior of the Greek temple characteristically consisted of a cella, the inner shrine in which stood the cult statue, and sometimes one or two antechambers, in which were stored the treasury with votive offerings. mple.htm Uncovering the Legacy of Ancient Greece Lesson plan The Corinthian temple came to embody Hellenistic splendor. The Corinthian column first appeared in the Hellenic period, probably as a decorative feature. Taller and more ornamented than either the Doric or Ionic column, the Corinthian order was preferred for the grandiose temples erected for Hellenistic kings, as manifestation of their earthly majesty and the authority of whatever deity with whom they claimed kinship. /05olympieum.htm

In the first, the Doric order, the columns are fluted and have no base. The capitals are composed of two parts consisting of a flat slab, the abacus, and a cushion-like slab known as the echinus. On the capital rests the entablature, which is made up of three parts: the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice. The architrave is typically undecorated except for a narrow band to which are attached pegs, known as guttae. On the frieze are alternating series of triglyphs (three bars) and metopes, stone slabs frequently decorated with relief sculpture. The pediment, the triangular space enclosed by the gables at either end of the building, was often adorned with sculpture, early on in relief and later in the round. The Doric columns are carved with channels called flutes (usually 20) these channels meet in sharp ridges (so called arrises) whereas in the Ionic order they are separated by bands (fillets) and the flutes are deeper. A characteristic elements of the Doric order: the Triglyphs and the usually decorated Metopes The Doric order mainly used by the Dorians (southern Italy and Sicily "Magna Graecia") and in Athens (Parthenon). Some characteristic elements are the triglyphs and metopes and the column capitals ( with the convex echinus and the square abacus) Wishing to set up columns in that temple, but not having rules for their symmetry, and being in search of some way by which they could render them fit to bear a load and also of a satisfactory beauty of appearance, they measured the imprint of a man's foot and compared this with his height. On finding that, in a man, the foot was one sixth of the height, they applied the same principle to the column, and reared the shaft, including the capital, to a height six times its thickness at its base. Thus the Doric column, as used in buildings, began to exhibit the proportions, strength, and beauty of the body of a man. Ancient Corinth Site, Korinthos, Greece This Doric peristyle temple, constructed around 550 BC, is one of the oldest standing temples in Greece. Now only seven columns are standing. The Roman colonists removed the interior columns to reuse in the construction of the south-west portico in the Forum. As they also modified the structure of cellae, we don't know how the inside was originally arranged. Just so afterwards, when they desired to construct a temple to Diana in a new style of beauty, they translated these footprints into terms characteristic of the slenderness of women, and thus first made a column the thickness of which was only one eighth of its height, so that it might have a taller look. At the foot they substituted the base in place of a shoe; in the capital they placed the volutes, hanging down at the right and left like curly ringlets, and ornamented its front with cymatia and with festoons of fruit arranged in place of hair, while they brought the flutes down the whole shaft, falling like the folds in the robes worn by matrons In the Ionic order of architecture, bases support the columns, which have more vertical flutes than those of the Doric order. Ionic capitals have two volutes that rest atop a band of palm-leaf ornaments. The abacus is narrow and the entablature, unlike that of the Doric order, usually consists of three simple horizontal bands. The most important feature of the Ionic order is the frieze, which is usually carved with relief sculpture arranged in a continuous pattern around the building. Ionic order was more popular among Greeks in Asia Minor and in the Greek islands. Doric Ionic

Temple of Hera at Selinunte, Sicily Columns of the Parthenon showing the entablature resting on the capitals The Parthenon (the epitome of the Doric Order) Metopes and Triglyphs of the Hephaistion in the Athenian Agora. Plan of the Hera Temple. Hephaistion in the Athenian Agora Tumbled column drums at Olympia.

Ionic capitals of the Erechthion. Base of a column from the Erechthion. Erechthion, Acropolis Athens Olympieum. Athens, late 6th century BC to 130 AD. Corinthian Corinthian Temple remains Example of each of the three Orders. artfile.com/ArtFile/hist ory/greek/columns.sht ml The temple of Zeus at Athens (started in the 2d cent. BC and completed by Emperor Hadrian in the 2d cent. AD) was perhaps the most notable of the Corinthian temples. w.greek- islands.us /athens/a cropolis/ er.aspx