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Archaic and Classical Greek architecture
The great advance in Ancient Greek architecture is visible by the
construction of the first monumental stone temples from the Archaic
and Classical periods. Those temples are characterised by the famous
order of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian style.
The Doric order
From an architecture point of view, the greatest monument that was
ever built in Athens is the famous  Acropolis
with its central temple, the Parthenon, a brilliant Doric temple.
This temple has the reputation of the most perfect Doric temple
ever built. It was built in 477-438 BC by Ictinus and Callicrates,
with the collaboration of Phidias. The temple stands on the conventional
three steps and has a cella with two rooms with hexastyle prostyle
porches. When it was first built you could find, inside the colonnades,
the fabulous work of Phidias, the gold and ivory statue of Athena
Parthenos, representing the goddess Athena with her spear, helmet
and aegis, a snake around her and holding the statue of victory.
The ceiling of the temple was supposed to be made of wood, covered
with painted decoration. In the late sixth century the Parthenon
was converted into a Christian church and in 1458 it was used by
the Turks to serve as a mosque. Most of the damage of the different
temples forming the Acropolis is due to an Italian attack against
the Turks. Another important Doric example is the Temple of Hera
in Olympia, built in the 6th century BC. It is a peripteral temple
situated toward the northwest corner of the Sanctuary of Zeus, east
of Philippeion and north of the Temple of Zeus. The temple has a
total of 14 Doric columns, creating two narrow side aisles, in front
of the north and south walls. The Temple of Hera is also named Heraion
and is the earliest monumental temple in Greece.
The Ionic order
 Unlike
the austere Doric style, the Ionic column has an ornamented necking,
a base in several tiers and has more flutes. This order is much
less massive than the Doric style and generally more graceful. The
Ionic style is well illustrated in Athens Architecture by the beautiful
Temple of Athena Nike (goddess of Victory), built by Callicrates
around 420 BC, beside the gateway to the Acropolis. It is the earliest
Ionic temple built on the Acropolis. Quite small, it has four columns
at each end of the projecting porches. The Erechtheion, opposite
the Parthenon, is another famous example of Ionic style. One of
its ends was dedicated to Athena Polias and its altars built in
honour of Poseidon-Herechtheus and Hephaisteus. It is in this temple
where you can admire the famous Porch of the Caryatid (the Maidens);
witch is a prostyle tetrastyle porch with a roof supported by six
beautiful Caryatides statues.
The Corinthian order
This order appeared at the end of the classical period and was used
a lot by the Romans to build their proper constructions. The Corinthian
columns were ornate by a single or double row of leafy scrolls,
usually acanthus. The Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens is an excellent
example of a Corinthian temple. It was an enormous structure, even
exceeding in size the Temple of the Parthenon. It had 104 columns
made of Pentelic marble and each of those columns was 17 meters
high. Today, only 15 of these Corynthian columns are still standing
in the middle of the Olympeion where stood one of the Seven Wonders
of the World, the huge gold statue of Zeus.
The classical period is also the period during which all the wonderful
theatres you can discover in Greece were built. The great plays
of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes were all performed
in those architectural wonders, but first of all in the little Theatre
of Dionysos (built in the slope of Acropolis in the 5th century
BC), actually standing behind the theatre of Herodus Atticus. Other
theatre dating from the same period is located at Dodoni, Megalopolis,
Argos and Epidaurus, in which, during summer festivals, you can
enjoy different events.
The Roman period gave birth to fountains, baths
and gymnasium especially in the town of Corinth. Athens also has
remains of this period with, for best example, the Roman Agora,
built in the time of Augustus and standing at the bottom of the
Acropolis. A century and a half later, the emperor Hadrian built
the famous Arch of Hadrian that still stands in the centre of Athens.
The Byzantine period explains the incredible amount
of lovely and heavy decorated churches that decorate the city
After the War of Independence, during the monarchy, Athens is embellished
by buildings in neoclassical style
like the National Library and the Athens University in Panepistimiou
avenue, the majestic Parliament, and some hotels and museums.
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This
is one of the earliest known architectural periods of ancient Greece.
The most famous site of this period is the huge Palace and residential
complexes of Knossos, in the isle of Crete. This imposing palace is
built on a hill, in a site admired for its natural advantages, with
access to the sea and proximity to a large forest full of cephalonian
pines, trees that were used for the construction of the columns and
the beams of the Palace. All around the Palace you can see a lot of
residential buildings like the "Little Palace", the "Royal
Villa" and the "South House", forming the large city
of Knossos, city with a population not less than 100 000 inhabitants.
The central court divides the Palace of Knossos into the West wing
where you can visit today the religious and official staterooms, and
the East wing which was used for domestic and workshop purpose. The
Palace was destroyed around 1450 BC by the volcanic eruption of Santorini.
fortified
by strong walls. One of the most important remains of Mycenaean architecture
were found by the archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the 1870s and
are located in the Peloponnese, in the ancient city states of Mycenae
and Tiryns. The primary remains you're going to find at Mycenae are
walls and tombs because the palace itself has been destroyed. Because
of that, a strange atmosphere of death reign in this site, atmosphere
mostly due to the mythological stories connected to this place. Here
was the supposed location of the House of Atreus who fed his brother,
Thyestes, his own children for dinner, in a last attempt of a dynastic
struggle. Therefore the next generation descending from Atreus will
be cursed until the last one. The king Agamemnon will sacrifice his
daughter, Iphigenia, to ask the gods for favourable winds that will
help the Greeks to go to fight against Troy. Returning from this devastating
war, Agamemnon will be killed by his wife Clytemnestra who will, in
her turn, be killed by her children, Orestes and Electra. The famous
Lion gate at the palace of Mycenae as well as the galleries of the
palace at Tiryns shows the amazing engineering expertise of the Mycenaean
civilization.