Late Classical and Hellenistic Temples in Greece

Hellenistic period: 338 – 31 B.C. Classical architecture outside Athens

Late Classical architecture

I. Late Classical Temples: Increased inward-turning, subject-oriented buildings that heroize individuals

Tholos at Epidauros, Greece, 360-320 BC(designed by Polykleitos the Younger)

I.

The tholos in the context of the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidauros

the tholos

Asklepios (deified human physician)

tholos (pl. tholoi) - temple-like structures w/ circular ground plans

I. A. Precedents: What Bronze-Age tholoi did Greeks start to re-use for hero cults?

Mycenaean tholos tomb at Mycenaeca. 1330 BC

Tholos temple at Epidauros360-320 BC

I. B. What are the architectural qualities of the tholos at Epidauros that focus one on the afterworld (death, immortality for heroes and kings)?

Tholos at Epidauros Asklepios (deified human physician)

Tholos at Epidauros

interiority

I. B. 1. Specific architectural qualities and materials of the circular plan.

I. B. 1.

Tholos at Epidauros – ceiling coffers

Tholos at Epidauros Exterior peristyle: 26 Doric columns

Interior colonnade: 14 black marble Corinthian columns with white marble entablature

The Parthenon, Athens

Samos

Ionic order

Doric order

Corinthian order

Bassae

I. B. 2. The Corinthian order: why was it used first on monuments that highlight immortality or fame in some way?

Corinthian capitalCorinthian order

I. B. 2. a. What were the features of the Corinthian order and what advantaged did it have over the Ionic order?

from the tholos at Epidauros

I. B. 2. b. What were the contexts for the earliest use of the Corinthian order?

Choragic monument to LysicratesAthens, Greece, 335 B.C.

Earliest exterior Corinthian order Earliest interior Corinthian order

Cella of the Temple of Apollo EpicuriusBassae, Greece, ca. 450-425 B.C.; Iktinos, arch.

II. B. 2. c. What were the origins of the Corinthian order as commemorative/funerary order?

Corinthian capital from the tholos at Epidauros

I. B. 3. How does this tholos focus the viewer on moments of life in extremis?

Tholos at Epidauros

chthonic area below

chthonic – dwelling in or beneath the surface of the earth

Hellenistic tombTombs in Classical Athens

II. C. Finally, how were late Classical tholoi for human heros adapted by the emerging cult of the ruler and its architecture?

The Mausoleum (for King Mausolus)Halicarnassus, Turkey, 353 B.C.

Classical architecture in Athens(Parthenon) Late Classical architecture

Balance between thegeneric & specific/personal

Viewer acutely conscious of this balance

Fascination w/ changing states of specifics in a relative world

Draws viewer into what is not seen: interiority, the chthonic

Summary

Hellenistic period: 338 – 31 B.C.

FromAlexander ‘s father Phillip II ends independence of Greek city-states in Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C.

toRomans conquer Cleopatra’s Egypt in 31 B.C.

Classical period: 481-338 B.C.

FromFrom the defeat of the Persians at Salamis

in 481 B.C. to

Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C.

II. Introduction: The Hellenistic Period in Architecture

Pericles, democratic leader

Hellas meant Greece in Greek (modern Greek Ellas)

Alexander the Great, king and emperor

II. A. What major political event ushered in the Hellenistic period?

Reign of Alexander the Great 336-323 B.C. as king of the Hellenistic Empire

The Hellenistic Empire of Alexander the Great, 334-323 B.C.

Hellenistic assimilation of Greek culture far beyond the Aegean Sea

II. B. What political system was imposed upon the Greek lands?

Division of Alexander’s empire into 5 smaller Hellenistic kingdoms

II. B.

Hellenistic Greek architecture

Monarchy: Ruler cult and its architectureSubjectivity: stress on introspection/interior experienceTheatricality: drama and/or pictorial illusion in designChoreography: directed paths

II. C. What were some general trends in Hellenistic architecture?

III. Hellenistic temple design: stress on subjective experience, theatricality

Temple of Apollo, Didyma, Turkey, c. 301-150 B.C.Architects: Pythios of Priene and Hermogenes of Alabanda

hypothetical rendering of the temple midway through construction

III.

Ephesos

Didyma

Samos

Archaic Ionian TemplesHellenistic Ionian templesThe Greek World before Alexander the Great’s campaign

Didyma

Temple of Apollo at Didyma

III.

Full-scale “blueprints” etched into podium

Temple of Apollo at Didyma Parthenon

hypaethral (open to the sky)

III. A. The Hellenistic determination of the subjective experience of the individual 1. What are the basic elements of the plan in the Temple of Apollo?

III. A. 2. How does the plan of the Apollo at Didyma pre-determine the experience of the individual?

Hellenistic Temple of Apollo at Didyma

frontal approach = directed experience

III. A. 2.

partial revelation - mysterious obstacle

Hellenistic Temple of Apollo at Didyma

III. A. 2.

a disorienting passage

Hellenistic Temple of Apollo at Didyma

Exits from dark passage-ways to sun-

filled “cella”

Hellenistic Temple of Apollo at Didyma

III. A. 2.

3.

Temple of Apollo at Didyma Famous Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi

III. A. 2.

laurel tree

actual house of the god

a spring

an interior world within a world

III. B. Classical orders in the Hellenistic period: Compare the Ionic order of the Classical period with the Hellenistic version at Didyma

Temple of Apollo at Didyma

III. B. 1. in terms of scale

Temple of Apollo at Didyma (Hellenistic)

III. B. 1.

Erechtheion, Athens (Classical)

Temple of Apollo at Didyma (Hellenistic)Erechtheion, Athens (Classical)

III. B. 2. in terms of decorativeness

III. B. 2.

Temple of Apollo at Didyma, historiated corner capital

Bust of Apollo Winged

lion or horse

III. C. Hellenistic creation of dramatic and theatrical experience1. experience of the determined path and ramp (“labyrinths”)

Hellenistic Temple of Apollo at Didyma

elevated stage setting for oracles

III. C. 2. theater of revelation in the cella

Hellenistic Temple of Apollo at Didyma

III. C. 3. pilasters in the “cella”

Temple of Apollo at Didyma

pilaster -- a shallow, flattened, rectangular column or pier attached to a wall and often modeled on an order

Pilasters in a later building

Beginnings of pilasters resting on a tall podium

Temple of Apollo at Didyma

pilaster, a Hellenistic development: blurs distinction between wall and column excites surface through plastic articulation

III. C. 3.

III. D. What was the political context underpinning the new dramatic interiority of Hellenistic temples?

Classical Temple – mid-space object dialectic between nature and culture

Hellenistic Temple – artificial environment cut off from nature

II. D.

Archaic Classical Hellenistic

Hera 1 at Paestum The Parthenon

Pythagorean(unchanging substratum of number and ratio)

Ignores the relative/the specific/the personal

Pythagorean & Sophist(validating human perception)

Balance between what is known and what is seen, between the generic & the specific

Embraces the changing states of the world

Personal (subjective) experience exalted over the generic

founding of cities (poleis) DemocracyClassical poleis (Athens)

Monarchy5 Hellenistic kingdoms

Temple of Apollo at Didyma

Review