The building culture of the ancient Greeks

 

In this article I want to describe through some general lines the way and the thought of the ancients in their system of building and living in relationship with nature, and also illustrate some details through my photographs. Then I will go into more detail on the subject.

The ancient Greeks paid the utmost attention to the search for aesthetics and above all to respect nature and the places where they went to build, always trying to find the maximum degree of harmony and formal perfection.

The main characteristics that distinguished them, compared to other civilizations, were the attention and adherence to realism, which in painting was resolved both in the search for the perspective representation of space and in that rendered by the volumes; in Sculpture, however, it resulted in a particular observation of human anatomy.

Whereas, in Architecture, that is, the mother of all the arts because it is the only art that must make the places habitable and on a human scale, it finds a very close correspondence, in fact between form and function.

The choice of the shapes, for their constructions, fell on the use of the Trilitico constructive system, that is having two elements arranged vertically and one horizontally. This, it should be noted, was only a choice of the Greek architects, who preferred it to the arches and at times, already existing.

Another feature introduced by the architects is represented by the architectural orders, such as the Doric, the Ionic and the Corinthian. Orders that served both the regulation of their works and the aesthetics that also the structure.

The Greeks lived and built mainly in function of the gods, in fact, they placed their maximum expressive attention in the construction of the Temples dedicated to their deities. It was not possible to enter the Temple, in fact, only the priests had the right, while the ceremonies were celebrated outdoors, that is, in the sacred precincts of the Temple.

The associative life of the Greeks took place only in public places, in fact, the dwelling house was given a low importance.

As a result, they were simple and made with perishable materials, such as stone, wood and brick.

The Greek house was arranged around two courtyards on which the various rooms open.

The Temple was, instead, their true passion. The Greeks built their Temples as great sculptures enclosing a space in which man could live and venerate the divinity. The exterior was very accurate in individual details, also in function of light and shadows, telling the most relevant epic episodes of the city, carved in the friezes and metopes.

In the photographs we can admire the temple E of Selinunte with some details of the interior and the capital with the column.