The Pantheon vs. The Parthenon
...cterizes the proportion of the length of the cella to its width, the distance between the center of one column drum and the center of the next to the diameter of the columns, etc. With these elements, we can identify the philosophy of design through the works of Classical Greek art as ostensibly different as a life-sized statue of an unclothed man and a temple over 200 feet long. The mathematical exactness with which the size of the principal elements of the Parthenon was determined steals our attention from the fact that this temple, as actually constructed, was quite irregular in its shape. Throughout the building, there are prominent departures from precisely horizontal and vertical lines that are associated as the foundation of all Greek post-and-lintel structures. The stylobate arcs upward at the center on both sides and the facade, forming a shallow dome, and this curvature is carried throughout, up into the entablature. Additionally, the columns of the periostyle lean inward slightly and are about two inches thicker then the rest. This digression from tradition meant that practically every block and drum of the Parthenon had to be carved correspondingly to a special set of terms determined by its unique place in the structure. This was a colossal task and it would not be started without motive. These changes were made to atone for optical illusions. If the stylobate were to be out on level surface it would appear to sag at the center and the corner columns had to be wider for they are surrounded by daylight and would otherwise appear to be thinner then their neighbors. The Parthenon is irregular in other ways as well. The most renowned of all Doric temples is "contaminated" by Ionic elements. Within the two-story Doric colonnade is a back room of four tall and slender Ionic columns. In addition, the exterior of the temple had a canonical Doric frieze, however, the inner frieze that ran around the top of the cella was Ionic in nature. Perhaps this is Ikitnos and Kallikrates way of suggesting that Athens was leader all Greeks by combining these two styles. When Hadien became emporer; work was commenced on the Pantheon-- the temple of all gods. In the Pantheon, the capability of concrete, both as building material and as means for the shaping of architectural space, is revealed. Its facade of eight Corinthian columns is a bow to Greek tradition, but everything else about the Pantheon is innovative. Behind the columnar portico is an immense concrete cylinder covered by a huge hemispherical dome 142 feet in diameter, and the peak of the dome is the same distance from the floor. The design is based on the intersection of two circles, so that the interior space may be imagined as the orb of the earth and the dome as the catacomb into the heavens. If the design of the Pantheon is simplicity itself, implementing that design took all the resourcefulness of Hadrian's engineers. The cylindrical drum was built up level by level using concrete of varied composition (thicker layers ...