When we speak of ancient classical Greece, we are generally referring to the Golden Age of Athens, which set the standards for our western thinking more than any other civic environ-ment in history, with the possible exception of Jerusalem.
Historians typically refer to ancient Athens as the first democ-racy and as a city devoted to human excellence in mind and body, to philosophy, and to the arts and sciences. In western thought this period has come to represent a summit in the history of civilization.
It is clear that Greek architecture was an important stand-ard for many later buildings. The Greek aim was to develop eternally valid standards of form and proportion. It is prob-ably that they wished to erect buildings on a human scale, yet ones designed to define their concept of invisible things.20 This then was considered by later architects to be a classically ideal architecture that has almost continuously set architectural standards for the past 2500 years.
Architecturally, the Greeks derived their buildings from other Mediterranean civilizations. For example, the plan of the temple came from Asia Minor or Mycenae, and the columnar form of the Greek temple was taken from Egyptian architecture.
Certainly Egyptian architecture would have presented the best example for the evolution of Greek architecture, since both depend on accurately cut megalithic masonry (Figure 1.13).21
Greek architecture, after 600 BC, was built mainly of stone, but the building techniques primarily referred to ele-ments of earlier wooden construction. Is it possible that the Greeks’ deep respect for past traditions, whose origins may have been forgotten, caused this transformation, rather than an ignorance of the material differences between wood and stone? Certainly similar transformations still occur when cur-rent architects forget the past influences on a scale model’s original meanings. George Hershey, in The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture, wonders:
Why, at great expense, do we have stone carvers make replicas of beads, reels, eggs, darts, claws, and a type of prickly plant, the acanthus, that grows only in certain
1.11 Egyptian funerary model:
Butcher shop
1.12 Egyptian funerary model:
Garden
parts of the Peloponese? Why wrap a courthouse in what an ancient Greek would interpret as the garlands or streamers used to decorate sacrificial oxen? Why call a gable by the name of a bone and leather drum, tympa-num, that was used in Bacchic rituals? . . . As Pugin, the great anti-classicist asked, ‘Do we worship the blood of bulls and goats?’.22
Although classical Greek architecture is now greatly respected, the social position of ancient Greek architects did not reflect this current exalted status. Architects during this period were not considered to be members of the highest class and, certainly, were not in the same class as the philosophers.
J. Bundgaard advances the theory that Greek architects did
1.13 Exterior of the Propylaea and the Parthenon
not, strictly speaking, design buildings. This may be why, unlike in the Egyptian period, not a single architectural draw-ing exists from this period. Accorddraw-ing to Bundgaard both the form and construction of a Greek temple were traditionally defined sufficiently for the architect to settle issues on the site.23 It appears that many important design decisions made were not made by Greek architects. Although these architects did not blindly follow either the Egyptians or their own pre-decessors, they made only slight modifications to these earlier designs through the use of architectural scale models.
J.J. Coulton writes in Ancient Greek Architects at Work,
The general form of a Greek temple was firmly estab-lished by convention and, therefore, needed no plan, while the ways in which one temple differed from others of the same period and area were subtle curvatures, slight variations in column size and spacing, small additional moldings in new places, and so on, and the effect of these could not easily be demonstrated or appreciated at a small scale, particularly when the necessary drawing equipment was far from perfect. Scale drawings and scale models would, therefore, not be helpful. Indeed Greek architects normally used different proportions in build-ings of different sizes and might well have found scale models positively misleading.24
Because the basic form of a Greek temple had been previously defined, architectural design small-scale models were of little importance. There was, however, a type of architectural scale model more important to Greek architecture: the paradeigma.
A paradeigma is a specimen or an example used to study spe-cific architectural elements, such as triglyphs or capitals which required a three-dimensional design, and in cases where carved or painted decorations had to be shown (Figure 1.14).
J.J. Coulton writes about the paradeigma,
The use of full-size specimens in this way raises a ques-tion of the architect’s responsibility for the design. There is evidence of specimens not made by the architect, but none of specimens made by him (as one might expect if he was by training a craftsman); since questions of detail are so important to Greek architecture, does this not mean that the craftsmen who made the specimens were the real designers? . . . The responsibility for supplying
1.14 Greek paradeigma
specimens was the architect’s, however, and as the man in charge of construction he would naturally approve, or even initiate, innovations, although he might not impose his own local style on another area. At the least, the architect must have determined the dimensions, probably also the proportions, of the part in question, so that it would fit its place in the whole building.
With one exception references to a paradeigma before the Hellenistic period involve only a single element or detail . . . for the word ‘paradeigman’ does not carry the implications of small scale that model often carries in English, and there is no clear evidence that the concept of working to scale was current in Greece before the Hellenistic period.25
There was not much praise for architects in ancient Greece;
even though they rose above the level of common crafts-men, none ever attained the high position of, for example, the Egyptian priest /architect Imhoptep. The mysterious and divine roles maintained by Egyptian architects bonded the Egyptian state architects to a ruling class; this relationship was an element missing from the straightforward world of Greece. There those who practiced architecture were not especially prone to be lion-ized by the public, perhaps because their buildings had mixed and confused authorship. Sculptors and painters, whose skills have a more direct relationship with their product, found greater admiration.26The Greek artists were able to interpret, change and define through their scale models. Greek architects generally used already well-defined concepts of explaining invisible things and mainly dealt with the refinement of details.
Greek architects were not prone to challenge the general concepts that regulated the designs of their buildings, rather they generally imitated past designs. For this reason these architects were not in a position to question what their build-ings represented. It may be useful to examine a more recent architectural example in order to reflect upon the ramifica-tions of this situation. A current example of the utilization of the traditional Greek model can be seen today in Nashville, Tennessee. The city was, at one time, known as the ‘Athens of the South’ because of its many schools and colleges and its accompanying culture. In 1897, a full-scale plaster model of the Parthenon was constructed to last but one year in the city to commemorate the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.
However, the plaster Parthenon quickly became representative
of the city and its culture, and consequently it was not removed (Figure 1.15).
Benjamin Franklin Wilson III, in The Parthenon of Pericles and its Reproduction in America, writes, ‘In this age of eager rest-lessness, constant experiment and changing fashions, it is essential that we should have some standards of the beautiful preserved to us that are beyond question or criticism. Such a standard existed in the Parthenon at Athens, and the people of America and of the world are indeed fortunate in its repro-duction at Nashville, where it stands as a beacon light to man and woman of every land who are interested in the culture of the past, the present, or the future.’27 To the citizens of Nashville, the Parthenon represented a standard of perceived excellence. The standard represented by the Nashville plaster
1.15 The Nashville Parthenon
Parthenon was considered as one of general stability and mod-eration. Wilson writes, ‘The Greeks in Pericles’ day did not allow the imagination to run away with them. Every detail of the Parthenon, every line, bears silent witness to their moder-ation. They abhorred eccentricity. One of their proverbs, ‘no excess’, is exemplified by the perfect harmony of the propor-tion of the Parthenon.’28
The building of the Nashville plaster Parthenon does not, on the surface, appear very unusual. More permanent copies of Greek temples serve as banks, courthouses and aca-demic buildings. The intention of the creators of the plaster Parthenon was to demonstrate that the future of Nashville was one based on moderation, idealism and stability. However, when this situation is viewed more closely certain contradic-tions begin to appear.
Certainly the residents of late-nineteenth century Nashville did not believe mere plaster would provide the city with a bright future. It was the form of the Parthenon that repre-sented the builder’s intentions. However, as Hershey has earlier noted, the Greek temples’ form derived from somewhat wild and pagan roots, which would most likely have scandalized the population of Nashville. This is probably, in part, why the gar-ish colorful decorations were not reproduced in Nashville: the bright colors would have been considered excessive. The reader should note then that the meaning of the Parthenon changed depending upon its context and that its original meanings may have actually been forgotten. Its meaning is subject to shifts and can hardly be considered stable. This point can also be made about the shifting meaning of scale models in general.
The plaster Parthenon became representative of the city and its future. However, soon after it was built, the Nashville Parthenon began to deteriorate, for plaster is not a very stable material. By 1931, the crumbling plaster Parthenon began to represent an embarrassment for Nashville and was finally replaced by a more permanent concrete replica. This copy of the copy replaced the unstable, shifting representation of stability, moderation, and idealism. This is an example of a simulacrum.
When the original reasons behind a defining concept, such as those setting the form of a Greek temple, become unclear or forgotten, a simulacrum may occur. The word simulacrum comes from the Latin word simulare which means to make like or to similate. A simulacrum is a representation, image or effigy hav-ing merely the form or appearance of a certain thhav-ing without
possessing its substance or proper qualities. It can be an imita-tion or sham which can create a superficial likeness, appearance or semblance.29