Ancient Architecture and Mathematics: Methodology and the Doric Temple

Abstract

By the mid-fifth century BC Greek architects had acquired a high degree of control over the design process, instilling individual temples with neat and accurate proportions while ensuring they conformed to broadly predictable patterns. The method/s employed elude consensus, however, and new hypotheses continue to appear. This paper sustains that temples were designed according to a modular method akin to that proposed by Vitruvius. Vitruvius’s specific method been discredited by modern scholarship, but a new insight overcomes what had seemed to be insuperable weaknesses. It is demonstrated that the triglyph acted as the lynchpin of a coherent and widely adopted system. The recent discovery on Salamis of a metrological relief provides clarity. The aim is to limit discussion of the ‘proof’ of this thesis in the interest of concentrating on arguments that support the case for modular design in Greek temples from a variety of standpoints (conceptual, symbolic, compositional, practical).