Architecture of Magna Graecia

By Brian Freeman

Magna Graecia refers to a group of ancient Greek cities along the coast of southernItaly. The area was busy commercial centre as well as the seat of the Pythagorean and Eleatic systems of philosophy. After the 5th century BC, most of the cities declined in importance.

The ancient authors divided Greek architecture into two major principal orders, the Ionic and the Doric— Ionic the evolved in Asia Minor and the latter in the Peloponnese. The Doric order was the predominant type of temple on the (Magna Graecia) Greek Mainland and among the Western Greeks of Sicily and southern Italy.

In Doric Order of Architecture, the columns have no base, but just sit right on the floor. At the top of the columns, there’s capital made of a sort of small pillow in stone, and then a square block, under the architrave. On the architrave, there are triglyphs(g) and metopes (h). The architecture followed rules of harmony. Since the original design came from wooden temples and the triglyphs (g) were real heads of wooden beams.

The pediments (A) are the low triangular spaces which form the end gables of the temple and were normally decorated. The scenes were all taken straight out of mythology. The most important figures were in the centre which the secondary ones flanking them in order of importance.

The Temple of Athena (Paestum,Italy) is great a example of Doric order that was reconstructed ca. 510.

Temples were built in limestone with sandstone touches,cue to the fact that large pieces of marble were hard to come by in Paestum region.

The roof was originally made out of fairly light materials such as plaster-covered thatch on a framework of wooden poles and could therefore be quite steep.

The Temples usually featured novel decoration.The frieze (f)panels were decorated with paintings or relief sculpture, often depicting individual episodes from myths related to the god to whom the temple belonged or to the local hero.

Doric columns are very simple. They have a capital (the top, or crown) made of a circle topped by a square.

For Further Reading

Dinsmoor, William. The Architecture of Ancient Greece, 3rd edition. New York: W W Norton & Company,1975.

Scranton, Robert. Greek Architecture, 3rd edition. New York: George Braziller, Inc. 1967.

Spawforth, Tony. The Complete Greek Temples.New York: Thames & Hudson, 2006.