Ancient Greek architecture emerged around 900 BC and is characterized by temples, open-air theaters, and other public structures, with notable innovations in design and construction techniques. Key architectural styles include the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, each defined by unique column designs and entablatures. The Parthenon is a prime example, symbolizing ancient Greece's architectural achievement and cultural significance, dedicated to the goddess Athena.

1. BY- SAYAN MUNSHI

2. Evolution
The architecture of Ancient Greece is the architecture produced by the Greek-speaking
people (Hellenic people) whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland and the Peloponnese, the Aegean
Islands, and in colonies in Anatolia and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD,
with the earliest remaining architectural works dating from around 600 BC.
Ancient Greek architecture is best known from its temples, many of which are found throughout the
region, mostly as ruins but many substantially intact. The second important type of building that survives
all over the Hellenic world is the open-air theatre, with the earliest dating from around 350 BC.
Other architectural forms that are still in evidence are:
• The processional gateway (propylon)
• The public square (agora)
• Storied colonnade (stoa)
• The town council building (bouleuterion)
• The public monument
• The monumental tomb (mausoleum)
• The stadium.

3. CULTURE
The religion of Ancient Greece was a form of nature worship that grew out of the beliefs of earlier cultures.
However, unlike earlier cultures, man was no longer perceived as being threatened by nature, but as its sublime
product. The natural elements were personified as gods of completely human form, and very human behavior.
The home of the gods was thought to be Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. The most important deities
were:
Zeus, the supreme god and ruler of the sky; Hera, his wife and goddess of marriage; Athena, goddess of
wisdom; Poseidon, god of the sea; Demeter, goddess of the Earth; Apollo, god of the sun, law, reason, music and
poetry; Artemis, goddess of the moon, the hunt and the wilderness; Aphrodite, goddess of love; Ares, God of
war; Hermes, god of commerce and medicine, Hephaestus, god of fire and metalwork, and Dionysus, god of
wine and fruit-bearing plants.
Worship, like many other activities, was done in community, in the open. However, by 600 BC, the gods were
often represented by large statues and it was necessary to provide a building in which each of these could be
housed. This led to the development of temples.
The Ancient Greeks perceived order in the universe, and in turn, applied order and reason to their creations.
Their humanist philosophy put mankind at the centre of things, and promoted well-ordered societies and the
development of democracy. At the same time, the respect for human intellect demanded reason, and promoted
a passion for enquiry, logic, challenge, and problem solving. The architecture of the Ancient Greeks, and in
particular, temple architecture, responds to these challenges with a passion for beauty, and for order and
symmetry which is the product of a continual search for perfection, rather than a simple application of a set of
working rules.

4. Architectural character
Column and lintel
The existent buildings of the
era are constructed in stone. It
is composed of upright beams
(posts) supporting horizontal
beams (lintels). The posts and
beams divided the walls into
regular compartments which
could be left as openings, or
filled with sun dried bricks,
lathes or straw and covered
with clay daub or plaster.
Many early houses and
temples were constructed with
an open porch or "pronaos"
above which rose a low
pitched gable or pediment
Masonry
Every temple rested on a masonry base called
the crepidoma, Of which the upper one which
carried the columns was the stylobate.
Masonry walls were employed for temples
from about 600 BC onwards. Masonry of all
types was used for Ancient Greek buildings,
including rubble, but the
finest ashlar masonry was usually employed
for temple walls, in regular courses and large
sizes to minimize the joints. The blocks were
rough hewn and hauled from quarries to be
cut and bedded very precisely, with mortar
hardly ever being used. Blocks, particularly
those of columns and parts of the building
bearing loads were sometimes fixed in place
or reinforced with iron clamps, dowels and
rods of wood, bronze or iron fixed in lead to
minimise corrosion.
Opening
Door and window openings were
spanned with a lintel, which in a
stone building limited the possible
width of the opening. The distance
between columns was similarly
affected by the nature of the lintel,
columns on the exterior of buildings
and carrying stone lintels being
closer together than those on the
interior, which carried wooden
lintels. Temples were constructed
without windows, the light to the
naos entering through the door. It
has been suggested that some
temples were lit from openings in the
roof.

5. Architectural character
Column and lintel Masonry Opening

6. Styles
Ancient Greek architecture of the most formal type, for temples and other
public buildings, is divided stylistically into three "orders", first described by the
Roman architectural writer Vitruvius. These are: the Doric Order, the Ionic
Order and the Corinthian Order, the names reflecting their regional origins
within the Greek world. While the three orders are most easily recognizable by
their capitals, the orders also governed the form, proportions, details and
relationships of the columns, entablature, pediment and the stylobate. The
different orders were applied to the whole range of buildings and monuments.

7. Doric Order
The Doric order is recognised by its capital, of which the echinus is like
a circular cushion rising from the top of the column to the
square abacus on which rest the lintels.
Doric columns are almost always cut with grooves, known as "fluting",
which run the length of the column and are usually 20 in number,
although sometimes fewer. The flutes meet at sharp edges
called arrises. At the top of the columns, slightly below the narrowest
point, and crossing the terminating arrises, are three horizontal
grooves known as the hypotrachelion. Doric columns have no bases.

8. Doric Order
The Doric entablature is in three parts, the architrave, the frieze and
the cornice. The architrave is composed of the stone lintels which span
the space between the columns, with a joint occurring above the
centre of each abacus. On this rests the frieze, one of the major areas
of sculptural decoration. The frieze is divided into triglyphs
and metopes, the triglyphs, as stated elsewhere in this article, are a
reminder of the timber history of the architectural style. Each triglyph
has three vertical grooves, similar to the columnar fluting, and below
them, seemingly connected, are guttae, small strips that appear to
connect the triglyphs to the architrave below. A triglyph is located
above the center of each capital, and above the center of each lintel.
However, at the corners of the building, the triglyphs do not fall over
the center the column. The ancient architects took a pragmatic
approach to the apparent "rules", simply extending the width of the
last two metopes at each end of the building.

9. Ionic Order
The Ionic Order is recognised by its voluted capital, in
which a curved echinus of similar shape to that of the
Doric Order, but decorated with stylised ornament, is
surmounted by a horizontal band that scrolls under to
either side, forming spirals or volutes similar to those of
the nautilus shell or ram's horn. In plan, the capital is
rectangular. It is designed to be viewed frontally but the
capitals at the corners of buildings are modified with an
additional scroll so as to appear regular on two
adjoining faces. In the Hellenistic period, four-fronted
Ionic capitals became common.

10. Ionic Order
The architrave of the Ionic Order is sometimes undecorated, but more
often rises in three outwardly-stepped bands like overlapping timber
planks. The frieze, which runs in a continuous band, is separated from the
other members by rows of small projecting blocks. They are referred to
as dentils, meaning "teeth", but their origin is clearly in narrow wooden
slats which supported the roof of a timber structure. The Ionic Order is
altogether lighter in appearance than the Doric, with the columns,
including base and capital, having a 9:1 ratio with the diameter, while the
whole entablature was also much narrower and less heavy than the Doric
entablature. There was some variation in the distribution of decoration.
Formalized bands of motifs such as alternating forms known as "egg and
dart" were a feature of the Ionic entablatures, along with the bands
of dentils. The external frieze often contained a continuous band of
figurative sculpture or ornament, but this was not always the case.
Sometimes a decorative frieze occurred around the upper part of
the naos rather than on the exterior of the building. These Ionic-style
friezes around the naos are sometimes found on Doric buildings, notably
the Parthenon. Some temples, like the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, had
friezes of figures around the lower drum of each column, separated from
the fluted section by a bold moulding.
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

11. Corinthian order
The Corinthian Order does not have its origin in wooden architecture. It grew
directly out of the Ionic in the mid 5th century BC, and was initially of much the
same style and proportion, but distinguished by its more ornate capitals. The
capital was very much deeper than either the Doric or the Ionic capital, being
shaped like a large krater, a bell-shaped mixing bowl, and being ornamented
with a double row of acanthus leaves above which rose voluted tendrils,
supporting the corners of the abacus, which, no longer perfectly square, splayed
above them.
The Corinthian Order was initially used internally, as at the Temple of Apollo
Epicurius at Bassae (c.450-425 BC). In 334 BC it appeared as an external feature
on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, and then on a huge scale at
the Temple of Zeus Olympia in Athens, (174 BC - AD 132). It was popularised by
the Romans, who added a number of refinements and decorative details. During
the Hellenistic period, Corinthian columns were sometimes built without fluting.

12. ACROPOLIS, ATHENS
The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient citadel located on a high rocky outcrop above the city of Athens and contains the remains
of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historic significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. While there is
evidence that the hill was inhabited as far back as the fourth millennium BC, it was Pericles (c. 495 – 429 BC) in the fifth century
BC who coordinated the construction of the site's most important buildings including the Parthenon, the Propylaia,
the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike.
The Acropolis is located on a flat-topped rock that rises 150 m (490 ft) above sea level in the city of Athens, with a surface area
of about 3 hectares (7.4 acres). It was also known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, the first Athenian king.
Nothing of this megaron survives except, probably, a single limestone column-base and pieces of several sandstone steps. Soon
after the palace was constructed, a Cyclopean massive circuit wall was built, 760 meters long, up to 10 meters high, and ranging
from 3.5 to 6 meters thick. This wall would serve as the main defense for the acropolis until the 5th century. The wall consisted of
two parapets built with large stone blocks and cemented with an earth mortar called emplekton. The wall follows typical
Mycenaean convention in that it followed the natural contour of the terrain and its gate was arranged obliquely, with a parapet
and tower overhanging the incomers' right-hand side, thus facilitating defense. There were two lesser approaches up the hill on
its north side, consisting of steep, narrow flights of steps cut in the rock. Homer is assumed to refer to this fortification when he
mentions the "strong-built House of Erechtheus" . At some point before the 13th century BC, an earthquake caused a fissure
near the northeastern edge of the Acropolis. This fissure extended some 35 meters to a bed of soft marl in which a well was
dug. An elaborate set of stairs was built and the well served as an invaluable, protected source of drinking water during times of
siege for some portion of the Mycenaean period.

13. ACROPOLIS, ATHENS
Site plan
1. Parthenon
2. Old Temple of Athena
3. Erechtheum
4. Statue of Athena Promachos
5. Propylaea
6. Temple of Athena Nike
7. Eleusinion
8. Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia or Brauroneion
9. Chalkotheke
10. Pandroseion
11. Arrephorion
12. Altar of Athena
13. Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus
14. Sanctuary of Pandion
15. Odeon of Herodes Atticus
16. Stoa of Eumenes
17. Sanctuary of Asclepius or Asclepieion
18. Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus
19. Odeon of Pericles
20. Temenos of Dionysus Eleuthereus
21. Aglaureion

14. PARTHENON, ATHENS
The Parthenon is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to
the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron. Construction
began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power. It was completed in
438 BC although decoration of the building continued until 432 BC. It is the most important
surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered the zenith of the Doric order. Its
decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art. The Parthenon is
regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece.
The Parthenon is a peripteral octastyle Doric temple with Ionic architectural features. It
stands on a platform or stylobate of three steps. In common with other Greek temples, it is
of post and lintel construction and is surrounded by columns ("peripteral") carrying
an entablature. There are eight columns at either end ("octastyle") and seventeen on the
sides. There is a double row of columns at either end. The colonnade surrounds an inner
masonry structure, the cella, which is divided into two compartments. At either end of the
building the gable is finished with a triangular pediment originally filled with sculpture. The
columns are of the Doric order, with simple capitals, fluted shafts and no bases. Above the
architrave of the entablature is a frieze of carved pictorial panels (metopes), separated by
formal architectural triglyphs, typical of the Doric order. Around the cella and across the
lintels of the inner columns runs a continuous sculptured frieze in low relief. This element of
the architecture is Ionic in style rather than Doric.
PLAN

15. Sources:
Wikipedia.org
Ancient.eu