The AGORA, or town square, was the centre of Greek social and business life,

around or near which were stoas or colonnaded porticoes, temples, administrative

buildings and public buildings, markets, places of entertainment, monuments and
shrines.
AGORA, ATHENS
 The STOA, a long, colonnaded building served many purposes, as until late times
the Greeks could not easily erect complex structures.
Stoas were used around public places and as shelters at religious shrines.
Important instances are the Stoa Poikile or Echo colonnade, Olympia, about 330ft
by 30ft, two at Epidaurus, three at Delphi and the Stoas of Eumenes, Athens and
Attalos II , Athens.
STOAS
 The PRYTANEION served as senate house for the chief dignitaries of the
city and as a place where distinguished visitors and citizens might be entertained.
 It contained the official banqueting room and also the symbolic communal
hearth on which a fire burnt perpetually, associated with the cult of Hestia, goddess
of the hearth.
 Instances occur at Olympia (p. 1058), Athens and Priene.
PRYTANEION

This council house could hold all citizens

entitled to vote. The tiers of seats rising on
three sides for debate are very likely any
modern senate or parliament house.
 The BOULEUTERION, or council house was a covered meeting place for the
democratically-elected councils.
 Early examples necessarily were small and needed many columns to support the
roof;
 Hellenistic examples might accommodate more than five hundred persons, but
still needed some intermediate roof supports.
 They were usually rectangular buildings with banked seats facing inwards on three
sides or arranged in a semi-circle. Those at Olympia (p. 1058) and Athens were
repeatedly enlarged.
 That at Miletus (c. 170 B.C.) accommodated 1,200 people (p. I54A).
BOULEUTERION
 ASSEMBLY HALLS, for citizens in general, were similar, but needed to be
larger.
 Until constructive skill was sufficiently advanced, public assemblies met in the
open air, in the case of Athens at the hill-side Pnyx.
 Covered assembly halls went by special names in different places, e.g. the
Thersilion, Megalopolis (c. 370 B.C.) and, the Ecclesiasterion, Priene (c. 200 B.C.).
The Telesterion, or Hall of the Mysteries,
 Eleusis, served a religious purpose.
GREEK ASSEMBLY HALLS
 The ODEION, a kindred type to the theatre, was a building in which musicians
performed their works for the approval of the public and competed for prizes .
 The Odeion of Pericles, Athens (c. 435 B.C.), adjoined the theatre of Dionysus,
and served too for rehearsals.
 It was a square building with eighty-one columns-nine by nine-so placed as to
give clear sight lines.
 The Odeion of Herodes Atticus, Athens (c. A.D. 161) (pp. 1033, 104) was very
much more ambitious. It resembled theatre in plan and probably was not wholly
roofed over.
GREEK ODEION

Odeion of Herodes Atticus,

 The STADIUM was the foot racecourse in cities where games were celebrated,
and had a length of about 600 ft between banks of seats founded on convenient
natural ground or on the soil from excavation on flat sites.
 The starting end was straight, the other semi-circular.
 The oldest stadium in Greece is that at Olvmpia (p. I05B). There are others at
Epidauros (p. io6B), Delphi, Ephesus and Athens
 The latter (p. i46a), commenced 331 B.C. and reconstructed in A.D. 160 by
Herodes Atticus, was restored from A.D. 1896 for the Olympic Games of 1906.
 It is said to accommodate 50,000 spectators.
 THE GREEK STADIUM

The Olympic Stadium in Athens ...

 The PALAESTRA was a wrestling-school, but the term is usually used
interchangeably with Gymnasium, a place for physical exercises of all kinds.
 Gymnasia, as at Olympia (p. 1053), Ephesus and Pergamon, were prototypes of
the Roman thermae, and in the Hellenistic period were formal structures comprising
courts for athletes, tanks for bathers, rooms for dressing and toilet, places for rest
and conversation, exedrae and other seats for spectators, stores and an ephebeum or
club-room which served too for lectures.
GREEK PALAESTRA
 GREEK HIPPODROME

THE HIPPODROME was a similar, though longer type of building for horse
and chariot racing, and was the prototype of the Roman circus. Few traces now
remain
 NAVAL BUILDINGS included ship-sheds and stores.
 The Arsenal at the Piraeus, built c. 340 B.C., a long narrow building for the
storage of sailing tackle of the Athenian navy, is chiefly important in that the
specification survives to show that still at that time the principle of the timber roof
truss was not understood.
 The so called Sanctuary of the Bulls, Delos (third century B.C.) (p. 1570, E, F H'
was similar in form, 220 ft long and 30 ft wide, and was a sacred, commemorative
building housing a war galley in a shallow, dry tank.
 At the far end was a sanctuary approached through an entrance flanked by piers
which were half Doric column and halfantae capped by recumbent sculptured bulls.
OPTICAL CORRECTIONS
 Making the whole base of the building slightly curved
and elevated so that the structural elements should
appear straight when seen against the sky.
 Use of idea of bulging the columns at the middle or 1/3rd from the base in
elevation so that it appears straight when seen from distance.
i.e the bulge was obtained by bisecting the space between the top portion of the
column is bigger and larger base of the column.
 Use of darker colour for columns against white background appear thinner hence reverse was made to
appear stronger.
 Regarding the use of calligraphy on the architrave of the beam the alphabets were made bigger than
the proportion of normal size so that it appears from a distance.
 External columns of the façade was slightly inclined towards the inner side that they
would appear stronger when seen inside elevation.
 Further last bay in the front row the intercolumniation space should be smaller so
that it would act like border for the building and gives strength to elevation especially
in edge or corner.

Other refinements includes Golden section, Golden rectangle and Golden mean.
 Concept of arithmetic and geometric progression.
 Use of finely refined moulding Eg: Cyma recta, Cyma reversa, Birds beak, torus etc..
 Greek painted the buildings in marble and dark colors both ceremonial and
protection purpose.