The Temple Building

The Greek temple in its simplest manifestation consists of an interior room, or cella, sufficient to house a statue of the deity to which the temple is dedicated and an entrance to the cella through a portico, or columned porch. The Parthenon is a more elaborate rendition of the same structure.

The Parthenon had a double cella with entrances East and West. The East cella sheltered the colossal statue of the goddess Athena, whereas the smaller West cella served as a safety vault for the treasury of Athens.

Instead of a single columned porch, the Parthenon was surrounded by a colonnade, eight columns front and back, and seventeen columns on each side, for a total of fifty columns altogether. A temple with a single continuous colonnade is known as a peristyle temple.

The columns support a stone entablature which in turn supports a peaked wooden roof covered with tiles. Architecturally, this is referred to as a post and lintel system. The columns themselves may look as though they were cut from a single stone, but in fact they are composed of many cylindrical drums that were hoisted into place before they were finished. Once the drums were in place the entire column would be fluted; flutes, or concave groves, would be cut the entire length of the column. The purpose of fluting was three-fold. (1) When seen in direct sunlight at a distance an unfluted column would appear to be flat. Fluting reinforces the roundness of form. (2) The addition of vertical lines to the superstructure makes it seem taller and makes the columns appear thinner, as any fashion designer will tell you. (3) The addition of vertical lines also leads the eye upwards towards the entablature.

Much has been made of the fact that the columns of the Parthenon are not straight up and down but swell slightly, reaching maximum diameter at two-thirds height, and then tapering off slightly. This fact is noted because it departs from the theory that the Parthenon is scaled to strict geometrical proportion or ought to be. There are in fact few straight lines or precise repetitions in the building as a whole.  The most noted exceptions to the rule of arithmetical regularity are: (1) the slightly inward slant of the columns; (2) the presence of larger columns at each corner, set somewhat closer to their neighbors; and (3) the overall concave curvature of the entire building, rising slightly at the center and drooping at the corners.

These so-called irregularities have occasioned much ingenious reasoning. The favorite theory being that the architect tempered concern for arithmetical precision with an understanding of optical illusions, so that the work would be psychologically correct rather than mathematically true. With respect to the swelling of the columns, called entasis, my preference is for the anthropomorphistic theory which holds that the architect thought the columns ought to show signs of giving under their massive burden as if they were made of putty or human flesh.

At the top of each column is a capital, the purpose of which is to mediate between the round column and the rectilinear entablature. The entablature itself is divided horizontally into three strata, first the architrave, then the frieze, and lastly the cornice. The frieze is separated into alternating triglyphs and metopes. The triglyphs are protruding decorative blocks bearing vertical fluting. They occur with twice the frequency of the columns below, providing a faster visual rhythm for the entablature. The metopes of the Parthenon, by way of contrast, were decorated with sculptures in high relief whose lines depart from geometrical regularity and verticality. More on the metopes later.

Since the roof peaks, on each end of the building,  below the cornice of the roof and above the cornice on the entablature, exists a deep empty space in the shape of a squat pyramid. These spaces are called the pediments and could be fitted with free standing sculpture.

The material used to build the Parthenon was marble quarried from Mount Pentelicon, ten miles distant from Athens. Pentelic marble contained a modicum of iron which gave it a creamy coloring.

Today, as a result of centuries of weathering, the marble of the Parthenon has taken on a dirty yellow brown appearance, which nevertheless cannot fail to impress when struck by the golden rays of the setting sun.

The marble blocks of the Parthenon were fitted so well that mortar was not required to conceal the joints. What astonishes even more is the rapidity with which the Parthenon was erected. To quote Plutarch:

As then grew the works up, no less stately in size than exquisite in form, the workmen striving to out vie the material and the design with the beauty of their workmanship; yet the most wonderful thing of all was the rapidity of their execution. Undertakings, any one of which singly might have required, they thought, for their completion, several successions and ages of men, were every one of them accomplished in the height and prime of one man's political service.

The chief architect of the Parthenon was Ictinus, known historically for his part in designing the Temple of Apollo at Bassae in Arcadia, and for his stately design of the Telesterion (or Initiation Hall of Demeter) at Eleusis.