Greek Architecture: Characteristics and Orders
Greece: Architecture
a) Characteristics
- Since the creation of art is linked to human life and the polis, all buildings must be proportional to the scale or measure of man. Therefore, the stones should be perfect (isódomos) and not too large, to avoid unreasonable results in buildings.
- As a material, first used the “pores”, conglomerate or sandstone, then hard limestone and, finally, marble (5th century).
- Architecture lintel (pre-Hellenic art influence), seemingly more serene. Renounce the arch and vault.
- The periodic repetition of the elements takes them into the rhythm, a common concept of poetry and music; in architecture, it can be seen in the frieze and on alternating-hole mass.
- The contrast between open and closed space (mass-hole) creates the architectural chiaroscuro.
- The building has its own color by material (stone, marble) and a polychrome, today missing, which prevents us from chromatic assessment, as the Greeks saw it.
- The refinement of the Greeks led them to an architecture for the viewer, taking into account the optical distortions, i.e., taking into account the building is not as it is, but as we see, achieving the elasticity of the straight lines through curvatures – Krepidoma, entablature, columns, intercolumniation, etc.
- The building is conceived as a whole, giving an idea that dominates the cosmos in order and beauty. Everything is calculated, measured, proportionate, and subject to a limit.
- Creation of orders that helped to create a balance, rhythm, and harmony of Greek art themselves.
- Avoid creating pyramidal shapes.
- Decorative elements.
b) Architectural Orders
Order is called a set of three building blocks: pedestal, column, and entablature.
The pedestal or podium is a stepped base. The column, the sacred symbol of the Mycenaean cities, then the Greeks adopted it as internal support and as a sculptural element on the outside. The entablature lintel imitates the cover of the roofs of the old Greek houses.
There are three Greek architectural orders: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, but the Corinthian is a derivation of the Ionic.
- Doric order stands on several steps, in the latest of which, called stylobate, it directly supports the column, which has no basis. The shaft is fluted in sharp edges, decreasing the thickness up to three lines and recessed in a ring under the capital. The capital is constituted by the collar, a horse, and an abacus. The capital rests on the entablature consisting of architrave, frieze, and cornice. The roof is two-pronged, limited in front by two triangles (gables), whose background or tympanum is decorated with sculptures. Crowning the pediment are the shots, called acroteria. Examples are the Parthenon and the Temple of Poseidon.
- Ionian: This order is characterized by its thinness. Its column is more elongated shaft, grooved, but not sharp edge. It has the capital base and consists of two whorls, bearing and abacus. The entablature architrave is divided into three plain bands decorated with a frieze and cornice reliefs with denticles, eggs, etc. It was the temple of the Ionic order Aptera Victory in Athens.
- Corinthians: A variation of the Ionic, which differentiates it, as an essential characteristic, the capital, as a basket, consisting of several series of acanthus leaves and the caulículos, writhing in whorls at the corners and in shopping. Surge in the late 5th century and represents an ornamental enrichment of the Ionic order. It was used in the monument to Lisícrates (Athens).