3.03 Contributions of Ancient Greece

By: Nicky (Katlyn) Riley

Ancient Greek Architecture

Greek life was basically taken over by religion, so that the most resonable explanation for why the temples of ancient Greece would be the biggest, and most beautiful architectural expiriences in the world. Greek Architecture has three architectural systems. Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Doric style is plain, but sturdy, and was used in mainland Greece and southern Sicily, Italy. The Ionic style is thinner and more elegant, and was found in eastern Greece and the Islands. The Corinthian style is seldom used in the Greek world, but often found on Roman temples.

The Doric order

Parthenon - The Parthenon was built in the 5th century BC, and despite the enormous damage it has sustained over the centuries, it still communicates the ideals of order and harmony for which Greek architecture is known.

Ionic order

The Temple of Apollo at Didyma - The Greeks built the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, Turkey at about 300 BC. The design of the temple was known as dipteral. These columns (known as the design of the temple, dipteral), surrounded a small chamber that housed the statue of Apollo. With Ionic columns reaching 64 ft high, these ruins suggest the former grandeur of the ancient temple.

Erechtheum - The Erechtheum was a temple from the middle classical period of Greek art and architecture, built on the Acropolis of Athens between 421 and 405 BC. The Erechtheum contained sanctuaries to Athena Polias, Poseidon, and Erechtheus. From the body of the building porticoes project on east, north, and south sides. The northern portico, tetrastyle Ionic, stands at a lower level and gives access to the western cella through a fine doorway. The southern portico, known as the Porch of the Caryatids, from the six sculptured draped female figures that support its entablature, is the temple's most breath-taking feature. The west end of the building, with windows and engaged Ionic columns, is a modification of the original, built by the Romans when they restored the building.

Ionic order

The temple of Zeus at Athens- Most ornate of the classic orders of architecture. It was also the latest, not arriving at full development until the middle of the 4th cent. B.C. The oldest known example, however, is found in the temple of Apollo at Bassae. The Greeks made little use of the order. The temple of Zeus at Athens (started in the 2d cent. B.C. and completed by Emperor Hadrian in the 2d cent. A.D.) was perhaps the most notable of the Corinthian temples.

Corinthian order

Temple of Apollo at Delphi

The temple of Apollo is located Southern slopes of Parnassos mountains, and was first built around the 7th c. B.C. by two legendary architects, Trophonios and Agamedes. It was rebuilt after a fire in the 6th c. B.C. and was named the "Temple of Alcmeonidae" in tribute to the noble Athenian family that oversaw its construction with funds form all over Greece and foreign emperors.

Ancient Greece architecture to modern-day architecture in the United States

While comparing the similarities of architecture in Greece, and architecture in the United States, you won't find much. Just look at the White house, and the temple of Apollo. The Architecture in those two places don't really resemble eachother at all. The only thing similar to Greek architecture in the United states, would be the capital building that resemble the greek revival style with the white columns. More modern materials have allowed the United States to design things in a diffrent way than Greek architects would design things.