Classical

The Classical style, developed by Greek architects in the sixth century BC and brought to perfection, a century later, in the buildings on the Acropolis in Athens, has had much the most enduring influence on European architecture. The constructional principle is simple and depends on a series of posts with lintels placed above them. In Greek architecture these posts began as the trunks of trees but soon were given monumental form as stone columns surrounding the walls of a temple or marking its entrance in a distinctive way. The gable ends of a Greek temple were formed as a low, triangular pediment that was built above the columns and lintels of the temple front.

If the system was simple the proportion and refinement of Greek architecture were meticulously considered. The diameter of the shaft of the columns provided a unity of measurement which dictated the proportions of the whole. Every element of the architecture from the steps the building stood on to the bases and capitals of its columns, the horizontal beams above, the frieze and the cornice at the edge of the roof, were designed according to precise mathematical ratios and in traditional forms.

The Greeks developed three distinctive forms in their buildings. These are known as the Classical Orders and are distinguished as Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. The Roman Empire, while using the arch and dome in a different constructional system, adopted the formal language of Greek Classicism to give authority to its buildings so that the forms of Classical architecture lasted for over a thousand years. Elements were copied in Romanesque buildings and in Italy, in the later Middle Ages, the revival of Classical ideas led to the creation of a distinctive style of Renaissance architecture which is Classical in its roots. Italian Classiciam spread throughout Europe to Britain and Ireland in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.