The Optical Corrections of the Doric Temple: Form and Meaning in Greek Sacred Architecture

by Prokkola, Tapio

• ISBN13: 9781936401765
• ISBN10: 1936401762
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-07-15
• Publisher: Itasca Books

Summary

The optical corrections of the Doric temple were first thought to have been implemented to prevent optical distortions that would make the temple look faulty. This explanation has been repeated by scholars although some of them maintain that the corrections were implemented to bring vitality to the temple. Author Tapio Prokkola is an architect and a historian of ideas. He claims that actually the corrections were simply the means architects used to make the Doric temple an autarkic unity although it was composed of many -- a unity in plurality. This ideal became the fundamental ideal for the citizens of the Doric city-states. All of the most important features of life were organized according to this ideal, which was the ultimate symbol of the city-state. The author also claims that scholars' interpretation of Vitruvius was actually a misunderstanding of the architect of the Parthenon, because of different ideals between Classical Greece and the early Roman Empire.