The Parthenon

The Parthenon

Introduction

The Parthenon was a symbol of excellence in Greek architecture. The temple was built by Greek's master architects in the names of Iktinos and Callicrates, who were main designer and master builder respectively. Phidias, one of the greatest names in Greek Sculpture, also supervised the design of the Parthenon frieze, which was one of the most prominent features of this architectural glory. Although the old Parthenon was destroyed, the details of the temple and its architecture remain to be seen.

History

The Parthenon was built from the year 448 BC until its completion in 432 BC for two purposes: to honor the goddess Athena and to serve as state treasury, which meant the holding of the tax money of the Delian League, a part of which was used to pay for the building of the temple itself (Koeller). The old temple of Athena was once destroyed during a war with the Persians because of the series of invasions launched by the Persians under King Darius (Kreis). The resulting plan was for the construction of a bigger temple with dimensions of 100 feet, which means that the new temple should be a "hekatompedon," and that it had three original plans. ("History of the Parthenon")

The Parthenon, however, was burned and the severe fire damage destroyed most of its parts at an unknown date. Moreover, in 1687 the temple was blown up when acropolis was besieged by the Venetians. (Koeller)

The Architecture

The Parthenon was built with the following dimensions: a width of 30.875 m for the east side and 30.8835 m for the west side; 69.5151 m for the north side and 69.5115 m for the southern side ("The Parthenon," Ancient-Greece.org). The temple had a width to height ratio of 9:4 without the pediments and the whole building was made of approximately 13,400 stones. On the whole, the Parthenon contains some details which were common to other temples in Greece while some are unique to the Parthenon. ("The Parthenon," Ancient-Greece.org). Overall, the temple has huge dimensions of 90.88 m by 69.51 m, but it was still smaller than many temples in Sicily and Asia Minor (Koeller) and was even relatively less famous in antiquity compared to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, which was much larger (Jenkins 21). The Parthenon stands on an area of 23,028 square feet, which is "about half the size of a football field." (Hadingham)

The Columns and Techniques. The architecture of the Parthenon is basically the architecture of the Doric order, with 17 columns at the flanks and 8 columns at the façade ("The Parthenon," Ancient-Greece.org). This conforms to the established 9:4 ratio, which determines the vertical and horizontal proportions of the temple as well as other architectural elements such as spacing between individual columns and their height.

Basically, the geometric structure of the Parthenon does not contain any "absolute straight lines" because the columns taper on a slight arc towards the top of the building. This tapering gives the impression that these columns are swollen from tension, or "entasis," or that they seem to be carrying the weight of the roof. This is a sort of "anthropomorphic metaphor," which means assigning some human qualities to inanimate objects like columns. ("The Parthenon," Ancient-Greece.org)

The columns of the Parthenon are usually known as "peristyle" columns, which are over 10 meters tall with a slight inclination of around 7 cm towards the center of the building. On the other hand, the platform upon which these peristyle columns rest forms a "gentle arc" which brings the corners closer to the ground by 12 cm. Moreover, the columns at the corners of the temple were designed to be about 6 cm or 1/40 slightly larger in diameter compared to the other columns, at the same time narrowing the space around them by 25 cm. The reason for such subtle architectural design is that these columns are set against the bright sky, which would anyhow make the columns appear thinner than they actually are and spaced a little bit further apart compared to the other columns set against the darker background of the temple wall. In short, the illusion of "increase in size and decrease of space" somehow compensate for the appearance that the bright background would normally bring about ("The Parthenon," Ancient-Greece.org). This sort of technique is actually a visual illusion although it appears normal in reality.

Moreover, there was a line of six Doric columns that supported the front and back porch, which is unusually small due to the oversized cella that holds the statue of Athena. Twenty-three smaller Doric columns surrounded the statue of Athena in a "two-storied arrangement" or a double-decked arrangement. The fact that a colonnade of columns is placed behind the statue is somehow a deviation from the usual development of basic Doric temples in Greece where columns only appeared in the flanks. Nevertheless, the unusually long and wide dimensions of the Parthenon provided the temple with "a dramatic backdrop of double-decked columns instead of a wall." ("The Parthenon," Ancient-Greece.org)

The last four columns, which are of the Ionic order, are placed in the back room, which shelters Athena's treasure. These four columns also support the roof of the shelter. The combination of Doric and Ionic columns in one temple was not a novel approach to the Greek temples of that time. Nevertheless, what made this architectural aspect of the Parthenon unique was the fact that the combination of columns of Doric and Ionic orders led to "the development of a continuous