Architecture. Зайцева И.В. - 20 стр.

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                              Ancient Greek Architecture

       Commenting on the building of the Acropolis at Athens, Plutarch remarked:
“They were created in a short time for all time. Each in its fineness was even then at
once age-old; but in the freshness of its vigour it is, even to the present day, recent and
newly made.” No better description of the aims and achievements of Greek architecture
has ever been given.
       The ambition of the ancient Greek architects was to discover eternally valid rules
of form and proportion; to erect buildings human in scale yet suited to the divinity of
their gods; to create, in other words, a classically ideal architecture. Their success may
be measured by the fact that their works have been copied on and off for some 2,500
years and have never been superseded.
       The Greek derived much from other Mediterranean civilizations – the plan of the
temple from Crete, the columnar form from Egypt, the capital from Assyria.
       One of the greatest monuments of ancient Greek architecture is the Athenian
Acropolis. The Acropolis, the Greek for upper town, stands on a low rocky hill and
contains the ruins of several ancient Greek architectural monuments.
       The Parthenon, a stately building with an eight – column facade honouring the
goddess Athena, was built by Ictinus and Callicrates in 447 – 438 B.C. Next to the
Parthenon is an Ionic temple of Athena, the Erechtheum, built by anonymous architect
in 421 – 406 B.C. In has the unparalleled portrayal of a contemporary event on the
frieze of the building. It also had to serve different cults, which meant that its architect
had to design a building with three porches and three different floor levels.
       The monumental gateway to the Acropolis, the Propylaea was designed by
Mnesicles, who had to adapt the rigid convention of colonnade construction to a steeply
rising site. In the precision and finish of their execution, which complements the
brilliant innovation of their design, these buildings had no rival in the Greek world.
       The Greeks gave rise to some orders of architecture. The orders are the highest
accomplishment of the pillar and beam construction. In classical architecture, the order
is a column with base (usually), shaft, and entablature, decorated and proportioned
according to one of the accepted modes. The entablature is the upper part of a classical
order, between column and pediment, consisting of architrave (the lowermost part),
frieze (in the middle), and cornice (the uppermost part).
       The Greek invented the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders. The Doric order is the
oldest and the simplest one. It has baseless columns as those of the Parthenon, the
spreading capitals, and triglyph-metope frieze above the column.
       The Ionic order appeared later, in eastern Greece. It is characterized by a moulded
base; tall, column shafts with 24 semi – circular flutes separated by flat fillets. Its
capitals have large volutes.
       The Corinthian order was an Anthenian invention of the 5th century B.C. It is the
slenderest and most ornate of the three Greek orders. In its general proportion it is very
like the Ionic. It has Ionic capitals elaborated with acanthus leaves. At first it was used
for interiors only.