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Classical Greek Architecture

Ancient and Classical Architecture

The temple architecture of ancient Greece, built on the post and lintel system and codified in the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders. Its concern for proportion, refinement and the expressive treatment of the column made it, through Rome and the Renaissance, the most imitated architectural language in history; the Parthenon in Athens is its defining monument. Its earliest surviving works date to around 600 BC, out of a wider Greek building tradition traced back to about 900 BC, and it remained in active use until the Greek world was absorbed into Rome around the 1st century AD.

Facts
Disputed
Period
to 100 2
Century-level approximation only, no exact year is given: sources place the close of the Greek temple-building tradition around the 1st century AD, as it folds into Roman practice. The tradition's own beginning falls in the BC era and is carried in the entity's prose description rather than forced into a start-year column.
Origin Region
Greece and the Aegean 1
Connections

Associated With

Semper took part in the nineteenth century dispute over colour on ancient Greek buildings; he is not a Greek architect.

Source Architectuul: Gottfried Semper
Source Encyclopedia Britannica

The Doric and Ionic orders were formulated within this tradition before the Corinthian order and the Roman elaborations that followed.

Source Encyclopedia Britannica

Influenced

A deliberate 18th and 19th century revival of Greek temple forms and orders, spurred by renewed study of Athens and antiquarian publication of Greek ruins.

Source Encyclopedia Britannica

Rome took the Greek orders and joined them to its own structural inventions.

Source Encyclopedia Britannica

Notable Examples

Co-architect of the Parthenon with Callicrates, the canonical figure of Classical Greek architecture.

Source Encyclopedia Britannica
In the Other Atlases

Originated In

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.

Source Encyclopedia Britannica
Sources
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
  • britannica.com/art/Western-architecture/Ancient-Greek, temple design passage
    The temple was basically a house (oikos) for the deity, who was represented there by his cult statue.
  • Notable Examples: Parthenon
  • Influenced: Roman Architecture
  • Influenced: Neoclassical Architecture
  • Associated With: The Classical Orders, Orders of architecture, origins section
  • Associated With: Post-and-Lintel Construction
View the Source
2. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationWikipedia: Ancient Greek architecture, Lead section
Quote, Wikipedia: Ancient Greek architecture, Lead section
Ancient Greek architecture was made by the Greeks, or Hellenes, whose culture flourished on mainland Greece, the Peloponnese, Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Anatolia and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest surviving architectural works dating from around 600 BC.
View the Source
Architectuul: Gottfried Semper
ArchitectuulAssociated With: Gottfried Semper, Biography paragraph one
Quote, Associated With: Gottfried Semper, Biography paragraph one
he was one of the major figures in the controversy surrounding the polychrome architectural style of ancient Greece
View the Source
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