Author Description

This book describes the development of classical architecture in the countries bordering the Aegean sea from the 6th to the 3rd century BC. Against a background of philosophical, political and social transformation, it traces the development of the austere and functional Doric Order and the more sensual and orientalised Ionic Order by the architects of the Dorian and Ionian branches of the Achaean people, expressing the influence of the sky gods and the mother goddess respectively. However, the greatest achievements of classical architecture are arguably the products of Doric/Ionic hybridism - as in the principal buildings of the Athenian Acropolis, still revered as among the greatest works of art ever produced.Hellenic Classicism takes the story on through the debilitating Peloponnesian wars to the triumph of emotion over reason expressed in the development of the Corinthian Order.