The Parthenon, is a temple positioned on the Acropolis, which is a rocky hill in the center of Athens. It was created in the 5th century BC, with the combined efforts of architects Callicrates and Ictinus, whom supervised the Parthenon’s design and sculptor Phidias, who oversaw the construction of the Parthenon. The Parthenon is dedicated to Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, and is known to be a powerful symbol for Greece’s culture, western civilisation and Athenian democracy. It was constructed out of pentelic marble, which changes between white and gold depending on the intensity of the sun against it. The Parthenon’s entire structural design was the most elaborated Greek temple of that time and it reflected Greek humanism – meaning that human experience with the Parthenon was placed in number one priority. Having the title as one of the most significant infrastructure in Greece due to its history and intricate architecture, the Parthenon is an important factor which led to today’s understanding of the Athenians.
Building of the Parthenon was not easy, and many different elements were taken into account in order to make the Parthenon arete. In Greek, arete means perfection and excellence. Being located on the Acropolis, the Parthenon is high above the levelled ground and is the center of Athens. This high and elevated location of the Parthenon, creates a sense of spiritual closeness to the heavens. The architects discovered that if the base of the building were to be laid perfectly level in long horizonal lines, creating an optical illusion that it would sag in the middle. They compensated this optical illusion by integrating a slight upward curve toward the center such that when the Parthenon is viewed at a distance the base line of the Parthenon would appear to be straight. (Figure 1)
The Parthenon consists of eight columns at the front, and seventeen columns at the flanks. It was apparent that sunlight was a factor which made columns at the sides to appear to be thinner than columns which are set against the darker background of the Parthenon. Also, due to the slight upward curve, the distance between the columns appear smaller towards the middle. The architects countered these problems by making the 4 columns at the ends the widest, and increasing the distance between the columns towards the side.
The architects created the columns such that it lean inwards in an acute angle towards the cella walls. The top of the column starts out skinny and towards the middle it starts to bulge. It was meant to give an appearance of dynamic strength and stability, especially from the audience’s bottom view.
These refinements which were infused into the design of the Parthenon aids to create the appearance of the perfect building, which was human in scale. This design was not to overwhelm the audience but rather to make the Parthenon more approachable.
The Parthenon was the most richly decorated Greek temple, and it was made up of three important elements, frieze, metope and pediment. The frieze is the stretch of sculptures which runs along the architrave of the Parthenon, and was 1.02meters high and was 160 meters long. Human figures, deities and animals such as horses were seen. Metopes were individual sculptures which were separated from one another by a triglyph, which is an architectural decoration. Originally, there was a total of 92 metopes, 14 were on the west and east sides, and 32 were on the remaining sides. These important elements mainly describes the main event, the Panathenaic Procession which happened in Athens’s religious and social life. It was carried out every four years in Athens, and was one of the things the Athenians identified themselves by. Frieze portraying the phases of the procession, was found on around the sides of the Parthenon. Starting from the west end, horsemen can be seen to be mounting their horse(Figure 4), followed by those who are ready in movement for the Procession. (Figure 5) Also, offerings of sacrificial animals such as sheeps and oxen with heir herdsman can be seen at the eastern side. (Figure 6)
There are many interpretations and views towards the sculptures on the Parthenon. But according to zeitegeist theory, these sculptures were representing the idealistic period in the history of Greece. Although anonymous, but the perfect faces on the sculptures depicted idealised version of Athenians, who have achieved apotheosis and could stand in the presence of God. It is known that the western metopes shows the recorded conflicts of Amazon and Greek, the eastern side depicts the fight between the Olympian gods and giants, the south showed a battle between the Greeks and Centaurs and lastly the north metopes showed scenes from the Trojan war. The front of the Parthenon faces the Areopagus, where it is known that the Athenians whom were ruled by Theseus defeated an amazon invasion.
In conclusion, the refinements infused into the architecture of the Parthenon along with other elements such as the ionic frieze, revolutionized and bridged the gap between the divine and human, and brought to light the future of architectural forms in Greece in years to come. Overall, all these features helps create a more dynamic architectural expression, distinguishing the Parthenon from the other Greek temples, which consist of static Doric structures. The Parthenon was a reflection of the ideals of that time due to its close representations of the cultural and religious procedures, which happened and allows for the audience to identify how the Athenians during that time period was like.