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UNIT 2

ANCIENT GREEK ARCHITECTURE

I. Read the text and translate it in the written form.

Greek architects provided some of the finest and most distinctive

buildings in the entire Ancient World and some of their structures, such as
temples, theatres, and stadia, would become staple features of towns
and cities from antiquity onwards. In addition, the Greek concern with

simplicity, proportion, perspective, and harmony in their buildings would
go on to greatly influence architects in the Roman world and provide the
foundation for the classical architectural orders which would dominate the
western world from the Renaissance to the present day.

There are five orders of classical architecture - Doric, Ionic, Corin-
thian, Tuscan, and Composite - all named as such in later Roman times.

Greek architects created the first three and hugely influenced the latter two
which were composites rather than genuine innovations. An order, prop-
erly speaking, is a combination of a certain style of column with or without
a base and an entablature (what the column supports: the architrave, frieze,

and cornice). The earlier use of wooden pillars eventually evolved into the
Doric column in stone. This was a vertical fluted column shaft, thinner at
its top, with no base and a simple capital below a square abacus. The en-

tablature frieze carried alternating triglyphs and metopes. The Ionic order,
with origins in mid-6th century BCE Asia Minor, added a base and volute,
or scroll capital, to a slimmer, straighter column. The Ionic entablature of-
ten carries a frieze with richly carved sculpture. The Corinthian column,

invented in Athens in the 5th century BCE, is similar to the Ionic but
topped by a more decorative capital of stylized acanthus and fern leaves.
These orders became the basic grammar of western architecture and it is

difficult to walk in any modern city and not see examples of them in one
form or another.
The Greeks certainly had a preference for marble, at least for their
public buildings. Initially, though, wood would have been used for not

only such basic architectural elements as columns but the entire buildings
themselves. Early 8th century BCE temples were so constructed and had

thatch roofs. From the late 7th century BCE, temples, in particular, slowly
began to be converted into more durable stone edifices; some even had a
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