College of Environmental Design
Department of Architecture, UC Berkeley
Architecture Slide Library
Architecture 170 - Fall 1996 - Dell Upton - September 19
I. ATHENS. The elements of the ancient city: self-definition, political power, religious justification. The Greek city: accommodation of complexity and change; essential elements rather than site, arrangement, or specific buildings define it. Athenian state founded 8C BCE. Slow process of urbanization.
The walls: Mycenaean citadel as first fortifications; 6C walls encompassing Acropolis and Agora; Thermistoclean walls, early 5C BCE, enclose Pnyx Hill, large circumference. Note: Long Walls (later 5C), linking Athens with old port of Phaleron and new one of Piraeus. Where is Athens? Asty/central place vs. polis. (Athens & Piraeus plan; Atherns 5C BCE)
The Agora. Sited between 3 hills and a creek, along Panathenic Way, on former site of Kerameikos/PottersÌ Quarter. Note: Bouleuterion/Council House; Royal Stoa (mid 6C BCE), Painted Stoa (mid 5C BCE), Stoa of Zeus (late 5C BCE); Hephaistion, law court, Tholos/Skias, miscellaneous religious and civic monuments.
Domestic life in Greece. Courtyard houses with menÌs dining room (andron), secluded quarters for women. The house vs. the city.
II. THE HIPPODAMIAN PLANNING TRADITION. Hippodamus of Miletus (b. late 6C BCE). His method: diairesis (division of available area) and nemesis (allocation of specific sites). Hippodamus planned Piraeus, possibly Miletus. Piraeus, founded early 5C as port of Athens. Note: grid plan, commercial and public (Hippodameia) agoras, public and private sectors, adaptation to site. Priene, Turkey. Refounded 4C BCE. Note: grid plan fitted to site, east-west axis, commercial agora, public buildings (Sacred Stoa); cross-axis formed by theater, stadium, gymnasium. (Priene, plan of central area).
III. HELLENISM. The conquests of Philip of Macedonia and his son Alexander the Great (ruled 336-323 BCE). Archaic vs. Classical vs. Hellenistic design.
Hellenistic city planning. Subordination of individual features to development of whole site. Attempts to unify and monumentalize by architectural means. Agora, Athens: Stoa of Attalos II (mid 2C BCE), South Stoa and ÏcommercialÓ agora.
Hellenism in architecture: the Didymaion or Temple of Apollo at Didyma, vic. Miletus, Turkey, built over several centuries beginning 4C BCE (inner temple) and 3C BCE (main temple). Architects?: Paeonius of Ephesus and Daphnis of Miletus. Intricacy and detail as architectural goals. (Miletus, Temple of Apollo. Plan; restored section; restored Cella ).