Greek Temple Architecture: Orders, Plans & Key Features

Greek Temple Architecture

The Greek temple is designed to be viewed from the outside; the interior is less important. Its contribution of columns has played an essential role in all later architecture. It was from the 7th century BC when the construction of temples became generalized. Greek art that follows can be periodized into the most important periods listed below:

Periods in Greek Art

• Archaic: 8th–7th century BC
• Classical: Includes the Severe and Classic phases:
  • Severe: 500–450 BC
  • Classic: 450–400 BC
  • Late Classical: 400–350 BC
• Hellenistic: 330–30 BC

Key Features of Classical Temple Architecture

Classical temple architecture is defined by harmony, proportion, balance, the ideal of beauty, and rational order. Greek architecture also endorses technical perfection manifested in many aspects of buildings, such as precisely finished walls achieved by adjusting blocks without mortar and securing them with metal pins.

In construction, a series of optical adjustments were applied — slight curvature of architraves and the stylobate — so that the human eye perceives them as straight. These refinements correct apparent visual errors and contribute to the so-called anti-colossal effect of Greek structures.

Formal Characteristics

The temple plan is a rectangular, uniform form that changes very little over time. The temple normally rests on a crepidoma that elevates and enhances the building. The construction is commonly divided into three interior parts:

• Pronaos: the first room, which reduces luminosity.
• Naos (Cella): the main hall where the deity was worshipped.
• Opisthodomos: the rear porch that served as a false back room to store treasures and objects of worship.

Types of Plans

The distribution of columns and walls produces different temple plans:

• In antis: only two columns in front, flanked by side walls.
• Prostyle: columns only in front; side walls are not extended.
• Amphiprostyle: temples with columns on two fronts.
• Peripteral: when a colonnade surrounds the whole structure of the temple.
• Dipteral: when there is a double row of columns around the temple.
• According to the number of columns: distyle (two columns), hexastyle (six), octastyle (eight), etc.

Doric Order

The Doric order arises in the 7th century BC and is named for the Dorians, associated with a more robust and austere character. Its origins are found in wooden models, with probable Egyptian influence in the translation to stone. The Doric model appears around 600 BC in temples such as the Hera temple at Olympia.

Ionic Order

The Ionic order emerges in the mid-6th century BC in the region of Ionia. It contains symbolic values associated with Eastern traditions and Egyptian influence. The Ionic capital is characterized by volutes (scrolls) and more floral motifs; the order is more slender and responds to a refined culture, often tending toward greater monumentality.

Corinthian Order

The Corinthian order appears in the first half of the 4th century BC. Its differences from the Ionic order are concentrated in the capital. The earliest known use is associated with the Temple of Apollo at Bassae. The Corinthian capital includes an astragal (collar) and a rectangular abacus similar to the Ionic, but it is distinguished by carved acanthus leaves and more elaborate ornamentation.