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79-674: Orna Villa , also known as the Alexander Means House and the Means/Tanner House , is a historic Greek Revival house located on Emory Street in Oxford, Georgia . Built in 1825, it is the oldest house in Oxford. The house is a work of Richard K. Dearing. The home was owned for a time by Alexander Means, a founder and president of Emory College (the original site of which is now Oxford College of Emory University ) and

158-584: A Christian scene, sometimes dominated by a much larger Christ in Majesty or a Virgin Mary . There are often supporting figures on the archivolts to the sides, and on the lintel below. The low triangular pediment was revived, initially mainly for the main facade of churches, in Renaissance architecture , but at first the triangular tympanum was left plain or only decorated with a round window, or sometimes

237-569: A Selinote (1851). The controversy was to inspire von Klenze's "Aegina" room at the Munich Glyptothek of 1830, the first of his many speculative reconstructions of Greek colour. Hittorff lectured in Paris in 1829–1830 that Greek temples had originally been painted ochre yellow, with the moulding and sculptural details in red, blue, green and gold. While this may or may not have been the case with older wooden or plain stone temples, it

316-676: A composition in stucco with eight figures filling the space; like some other examples this seems to have been added after the rest of the building was finished, and the designer and sculptor are unknown. Such compositions remained uncommon in Baroque architecture , even in the grandest buildings, and somewhat unexpectedly are found more often north of the Alps , with many in Protestant countries. Examples include crowded scenes, all in relief, at Saint Paul's Cathedral ( Conversion of Saint Paul ),

395-651: A different course in a number of countries, lasting until the 1860s and the American Civil War and later in Scotland . Modern-day architects are recreating this design by building houses similar to the Greek Revival. These houses are characterized by their symmetrical and balanced proportions, typically featuring a bold, pedimented portico with arched openings. The symmetrical façade is divided into two equal halves. Much Greek Revival architecture used

474-551: A round motif such as a star. The cathedral at Pienza (c. 1460), with the coat of arms of Pope Pius II is one of the earliest examples to feature the arms of the donor of the church. This became common by the next century, as at Saint Peter's Basilica and the Church of the Gesù (completed 1584), both in Rome. Heraldic sculpture was to remain extremely common in tympani, especially as

553-626: Is NRHP-listed. This article about a property in Georgia on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Greek Revival architecture With newfound access to Greece and Turkey , or initially to the books produced by the few who had visited the sites, archaeologist–architects of the period studied the Doric and Ionic orders. Despite its universality rooted in ancient Greece,

632-541: Is a more common term, as these are now mostly in a relatively low relief, and less than life-size, as they are lower down the building, over doorways, and so closer to the observer than on classical temples. They are typically framed by round tops in Romanesque architecture , and pointed Gothic arch shapes in Gothic architecture . In both cases the composition was often arranged in tiers, with many small figures making up

711-478: Is attached to the back wall of the pediment. Harris in The Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture defines pediment as "In classical architecture, the triangular gable end of the roof above the horizontal cornice, often filled with sculpture." Pediments can also be used to crown doors or windows. In Romanesque architecture , and very often in Gothic architecture , the tympanum

790-419: Is known from literary descriptions and depictions in other works of art, but none of it is known to survive. The Parthenon's west pediment depicted the contest between Athena and Poseidon over Attica and the east pediment the birth of Athena. Classical archeologists since Johann Joachim Winckelmann 's Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (published 1764) have recognized Greek pediment sculpture, in particular

869-506: Is predominantly found in two centres, Berlin and Munich . In both locales, Doric was the court style rather than a popular movement and was heavily patronised by Frederick William II of Prussia and Ludwig I of Bavaria as the expression of their desires for their respective seats to become the capital of Germany. The earliest Greek building was the Brandenburg Gate (1788–91) by Carl Gotthard Langhans , who modelled it loosely on

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948-729: Is tempting to see the Greek Revival as the expression of Regency authoritarianism, then the changing conditions of life in Britain made Doric the loser of the Battle of the Styles , dramatically symbolized by the selection of Charles Barry 's Gothic design for the Palace of Westminster in 1836. Nevertheless, Greek continued to be in favour in Scotland well into the 1870s in the singular figure of Alexander Thomson , known as Greek Thomson. Following

1027-527: Is usually semi-circular at the top, and the sculptural groups, usually with religious subjects, adapted to fit the new spaces. In the Renaissance triangular pediments returned, as gradually did sculptural groups within them, becoming very popular for important buildings in the 19th century. The pediment begins in Ancient Greek architecture ; according to the mid-fifth century BCE poet Pindar , it

1106-593: The Academy and University of Athens , the Zappeion , and the National Library of Greece . The most prominent architects in this style were northern Europeans such as Christian and Theophil Hansen and Ernst Ziller and German-trained Greeks such as Stamatios Kleanthis and Panagis Kalkos . Despite the prestige of ancient Greece among Europe's educated elite, most people had minimal direct knowledge of

1185-563: The Act of Union , the Napoleonic Wars , and the clamour for political reform. William Wilkins 's winning design for the public competition for Downing College, Cambridge announced the Greek style was to become a dominant idiom in architecture, especially for public buildings of this sort. Wilkins and Robert Smirke went on to build some of the most important buildings of the era, including

1264-490: The Archaeological Museum of Corfu , including the central figure of the winged gorgon Medusa , flanked by two crouching lions. Richter points out that the "weak points are the lack of concerted action and unity as well as the ludicrously small scale of the side figures compared with the central Gorgon." Gorgons and gorgon heads were the most common early pedimental sculptures, as an architectural version of

1343-595: The Bank of Pennsylvania . Latrobe's design for the U.S. Capitol was an imaginative interpretation of the classical orders not constrained by historical precedent, incorporating American motifs such as corncobs and tobacco leaves. This idiosyncratic approach became typical of the American attitude to Greek detailing. His overall plan for the Capitol did not survive, though many of his interiors did. He also did notable work on

1422-652: The Greek War of Independence , Romantic Nationalist ideology encouraged the use of historically Greek architectural styles in place of Ottoman or pan-European ones. Classical architecture was used for secular public buildings, while Byzantine architecture was preferred for churches. Examples of Greek Revival architecture in Greece include the Old Royal Palace (now the home of the Parliament of Greece ),

1501-686: The Monumental Church and the Washington Monument , as well as George Hadfield and Gabriel Manigault . At the same time, the popular appetite for the Greek was sustained by architectural pattern books, the most important of which was Asher Benjamin's The Practical House Carpenter (1830). This guide helped create the proliferation of Greek homes seen especially in northern New York State and in Connecticut's former Western Reserve in northeastern Ohio . The discovery that

1580-593: The Philadelphia Museum of Art in the 1930s. The Victoria and Albert Museum has a mosaic group, for which there are medieval Italian precedents. Gisela Richter , in The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks , states that, "pediment groups presented peculiar difficulties. The chief requirements were: to place in the center a prominent figure or group, since here comes the chief accent; to fill

1659-572: The Porte , British travellers, artists and architects went to Greece and Turkey in ever larger numbers to study ancient Greek monuments and excavate or collect antiquities. The Greek War of Independence ended in 1832; Lord Byron 's participation and death during this had brought it additional prominence. The style was attractive in Russia because they shared the Eastern Orthodox faith with

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1738-801: The Propylaea in Athens . Ten years after the death of Frederick the Great , the Berlin Akademie initiated a competition for a monument to the king that would promote "morality and patriotism." Friedrich Gilly 's unexecuted design for a temple raised above the Leipziger Platz caught the tenor of high idealism that the Germans sought in Greek architecture and was enormously influential on Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Leo von Klenze . Schinkel

1817-735: The Theatre Royal , Covent Garden (1808–1809), the General Post Office (1824–1829) and the British Museum (1823–1848), the Wilkins Building of University College London (1826–1830), and the National Gallery (1832–1838). One of the greatest British proponents of the style was Decimus Burton . In London , twenty three Greek Revival Commissioners' churches were built between 1817 and 1829,

1896-437: The gorgoneion apotropaic amulet , which both Athena and Zeus are said to have worn as a pendant . Greek temples with pediment sculptures usually had them at both ends of the temple, and tended to have contrasting scenes, one perhaps a peaceful scene with deities, and the other with a battle or dramatic scene from mythology. Over the next decades refinements were made in the design and carving of pedimental sculpture,

1975-512: The "Three Fates" of the east pediment the "highest surviving achievement of Greek sculpture," and for Wincklemann's contemporary Ennio Quirino Visconti the Parthenon pediments "met the criteria for the best artists of the best period." The Parthenon compositions are considered to be the magnum opus of Classical pedimental decoration. Awareness of the Parthenon pediments, almost the only classical example to substantially survive in situ to

2054-658: The Declaration of Independence on the Jefferson Memorial , by Adolph Alexander Weinman (1943) is an exception to the usual allegorical subject matter, showing the Committee of Five around a table. Since World War II relatively few new groups have been created. Architectural terracotta was sometimes used, as at the department store Harrods in London (glazed, by Royal Doulton ), and (in polychrome) at

2133-454: The French ambassador to Constantinople to make drawings. These were made before the sculptures were greatly damaged in an explosion in 1687. The drawings had all reached Paris by Carrey's return in 1679, and contain crucial evidence as to the original appearance of the portions that were destroyed. The British Museum holds 17 figurative pedimental sculptures from the Parthenon, as part of

2212-534: The Greek Doric order in the earlier version found in buildings leading up to the Parthenon in Athens. This contrasted significantly with later Greek Hellenistic architecture and Roman architecture . Greek Doric columns are typically rather thick, often tapering towards the top, always fluted , and have complicated rules for the entablature above the columns. Additionally, the columns go straight down to

2291-526: The Greek Revival idiom was considered an expression of local nationalism and civic virtue in each country that adopted it, and freedom from the lax detail and frivolity that then characterized the architecture of France and Italy , two countries where the style never really took architecturally. Greek Revival architecture was embraced in Great Britain , Germany , and the United States , where

2370-473: The Greeks had painted their temples influenced the later development of the style. The archaeological dig at Aegina and Bassae in 1811–1812 by Cockerell, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg , and Karl Haller von Hallerstein had disinterred painted fragments of masonry daubed with impermanent colours. This revelation was a direct contradiction of Winckelmann 's notion of the Greek temple as timeless, fixed, and pure in its whiteness. In 1823, Samuel Angell discovered

2449-500: The Greeks. The historic centre of Saint Petersburg was rebuilt by Alexander I of Russia , with many buildings giving the Greek Revival a Russian debut. The Saint Petersburg Bourse on Vasilievsky Island has a temple front with 44 Doric columns. Quarenghi 's design for the Manege "mimics a 5th-century BC Athenian temple with a portico of eight Doric columns bearing a pediment and bas reliefs". Leo von Klenze 's expansion of

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2528-548: The Renaissance, and eventually highly influential, increased only gradually in Western Europe. They were first drawn, not accurately, in 1436 by Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli . It grew significantly over the 17th century, especially as numerous careful drawings were made in Athens in 1674 by Jacques Carrey , a member of Charles Le Brun 's workshop, who was sent in the suite of Charles Marie François Olier, marquis de Nointel ,

2607-1011: The Supreme Court interior (1806–1807), and his masterpiece was the Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Baltimore (1805–1821). Latrobe claimed, "I am a bigoted Greek in the condemnation of the Roman architecture", but he did not rigidly impose Greek forms. "Our religion," he said, "requires a church wholly different from the temple, our legislative assemblies and our courts of justice, buildings of entirely different principles from their basilicas; and our amusements could not possibly be performed in their theatres or amphitheatres." His circle of junior colleagues became an informal school of Greek revivalists, and his influence shaped

2686-704: The Temple of Apollo on the Cycladic island of Delos , in the collection of books that he (and Stuart in some cases) produced, largely funded by special subscription by the Society of Dilettanti. See more in Terry Friedman's book The Georgian Parish Church , Spire Books, 2004. Seen in its wider social context, Greek Revival architecture sounded a new note of sobriety and restraint in public buildings in Britain around 1800 as an assertion of nationalism attendant on

2765-482: The ancient Greek civilization before the middle of the 18th century. The monuments of Greek antiquity were known chiefly from Pausanias and other literary sources. Visiting Ottoman Greece was difficult and dangerous business prior to the period of stagnation beginning with the Great Turkish War . Few tourists visited Athens during the first half of the 18th century, and none made any significant study of

2844-415: The apex, or the apex and both corners, may be topped with vertical elements called acroteria taking the form of urns, palmettes , or figural sculpture. Walter Copland Perry wrote that it was proof of the power of Greek art that the classical sculptors not only overcame the rigid restrictions of the pediment's shape, but turned them to their advantage. Compositionally, the restrictions imposed by both

2923-512: The appeal of ancient Greece rose in the 19th century along with the growing acceptance of democracy. This made Greek architecture suddenly more attractive in both the North and the South, for differing ideological purposes: for the North, Greek architecture symbolized the freedom of the Greeks; in the South it symbolized the cultural glories enabled by a slave society. Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of

3002-455: The architectural ruins. It was not until the expedition to Greece funded by the Society of Dilettanti of 1751 by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett that serious archaeological inquiry began in earnest. Stuart and Revett's findings, published in 1762 (first volume) as The Antiquities of Athens , along with Julien-David Le Roy's Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce (1758) were

3081-597: The assembly of Greek buildings in Helsinki city centre is particularly notable. At the cultural edges of Europe, in the Swedish region of western Finland, Greek Revival motifs might be grafted on a purely Baroque design, as in the design for Oravais Church by Jacob Rijf, 1792. A Greek Doric order, rendered in the anomalous form of pilasters , contrasts with the hipped roof and boldly scaled cupola and lantern, of wholly traditional Baroque inspiration. In Austria , one of

3160-428: The awkward space of the angles; and to compose figures for the intervening parts of constantly diminishing heights. And the composition as a whole had to produce the needed variety of line and create a harmonious effect. The gradual evolution from primitive renderings to the wonderful solutions of the Parthenon are fascinating to watch." The sculptures themselves may be freestanding, in-the-round statues that stand on

3239-410: The bed of the pediment, or they can be relief sculpture , attached to its back wall. As an additional physical restriction in the pediment format, a deeper recess will throw the triangular field into deeper shadow, which means the figures should be executed in deeper relief or fully in the round. Only the pediments from the temple of Aphaia at Aegina and the Parthenon compositions are fully finished in

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3318-731: The best examples of this style is the Parliament Building designed by Theophil Hansen . In Canada , Montreal architect John Ostell designed a number of prominent Greek Revival buildings, including the first building on the McGill University campus and Montreal's original Custom House, now part of the Pointe-à-Callière Museum . The Toronto Street Post Office , completed in 1853, is another Canadian example. While some 18th-century Americans had feared Greek democracy, sometimes called mobocracy ,

3397-466: The city now enjoys a striking visual uniformity, and as such is sometimes whimsically referred to as "the Athens of the North". Within Regency architecture the style already competed with Gothic Revival and the continuation of the less stringent Palladian and Neoclassical styles of Georgian architecture , the other two remaining more common for houses, both in towns and English country houses . If it

3476-506: The coloured metopes of Temple C at Selinunte , Sicily and published them in 1826. The French architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff witnessed the exhibition of Angell's find and endeavoured to excavate Temple B at Selinus. His imaginative reconstructions of this temple were exhibited in Rome and Paris in 1824 and he went on to publish these as Architecture polychrome chez les Grecs (1830) and later in Restitution du Temple d'Empedocle

3555-489: The construction (1833) of the row of Greek temples at Sailors' Snug Harbor on Staten Island . These had varied functions within a home for retired sailors. From 1820 to 1850, the Greek Revival style dominated the United States, such as the Benjamin F. Clough House in Waltham, Massachusetts . It could also be found as far west as Springfield, Illinois . Examples of vernacular Greek Revival continued to be built even farther west, such as in Charles City, Iowa . This style

3634-453: The earliest in the style. They remained popular during the 19th century, now used for additional types of buildings such as museums, stock exchanges, legislature buildings, law courts, banks and town halls. Allegorical groups became typical on secular buildings. The pediment over the main entrance of the British Museum has The Progress of Civilisation by Sir Richard Westmacott , consisting of fifteen figures, installed in 1852, well after

3713-537: The early 1750s, intellectual curiosity quickly led to a desire among the elite to emulate the style. Stuart was commissioned after his return from Greece by George Lyttelton to produce the first Greek building in England, the garden temple at Hagley Hall (1758–59). A number of British architects in the second half of the century took up the expressive challenge of the Doric from their aristocratic patrons, including Benjamin Henry Latrobe (notably at Hammerwood Park and Ashdown House ) and Sir John Soane , but it remained

3792-406: The evolution from Doric to Corinthian was not inexorable. Both events were to cause a minor scandal. The emerging understanding that Greek art was subject to changing forces of environment and culture was a direct assault on the architectural rationalism of the day. Pedimental sculpture Pedimental sculpture is a form of architectural sculpture designed for installation in the tympanum ,

3871-434: The first accurate surveys of ancient Greek architecture. The rediscovery of the three relatively easily accessible Greek temples at Paestum in Southern Italy created huge interest throughout Europe, and prints by Piranesi and others were widely circulated. The Napoleonic Wars denied access to France and Italy to traditional Grand Tourists, especially from Britain. Aided by close diplomatic relations between Britain and

3950-427: The first volume of The Antiquities of Athens . He never practiced in the style, but he played an important role in introducing Greek Revival architecture to the United States. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Henry Latrobe as surveyor of public building, and Latrobe designed a number of important public buildings in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia , including work on the United States Capitol and

4029-529: The floor ( stylobate ) with no distinct base - this last aspect was often skipped by architects who followed the other Greek conventions, for example in the Brandenburg Gate . The understanding of actual Greek architecture was based on ruined buildings, and awareness of the full range of ornamentation, and colour, on ancient Greek temples emerged over the period. Architects were aware of the large pedimental sculptures and metope reliefs, and copied these expensive elements when funds allowed, but far less often had

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4108-445: The full range of antefixes and akroterions . Greek temples normally had no windows except perhaps in the roof, posing a problem for modern buildings for most purposes, which was generally brushed aside. Many buildings that needed to fulfill modern functions concentrated on having an impressive temple-style front, giving the other faces of the building a more practical design up to the cornice . In Germany, Greek Revival architecture

4187-413: The grandest temples. An Amazonomachy in marble on the Temple of Apollo Sosianus in Rome, whose fragments were excavated in the 1930s, is thought to be a Greek work of the 5th century BCE, removed by the Romans from a temple there in the 1st century CE. Allusions to the recent Battle of Actium have been proposed. The group on the final rebuilding of the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus

4266-529: The idiom was regarded as being free from ecclesiastical and aristocratic associations and was appealed to each country's emerging embrace of classical liberalism . The taste for all things Greek in furniture and interior design, sometimes called Neo-Grec , reached its peak in the beginning of the 19th century when the designs of Thomas Hope influenced a number of decorative styles known variously as Neoclassical , Empire , Russian Empire, and Regency architecture in Great Britain. Greek Revival architecture took

4345-414: The interiors and exteriors behind the main facade. Like the other forms of exterior decoration such as statues, antefixes , and acroteria , the pedimental sculptures were originally in terracotta and coloured. The "earliest pedimental composition to have survived," from the Early Archaic Period , was from the Temple of Artemis, Corfu , about 580–570 BCE. Large parts of the sculptural group are in

4424-430: The main building. Westmacott's son sculpted the comparable pediment of the Royal Exchange, London ; like the later New York Stock Exchange Building (1903), this featured an allegory of commerce. The group on the Panthéon in Paris was changed three times over its first 50 years, varying between religious and patriotic subjects as the political wind changed. By 1874, perhaps the most ambitious example in size and in

4503-412: The most notable being St.Pancras church by William and Henry William Inwood . In Scotland the style was avidly adopted by William Henry Playfair , Thomas Hamilton and Charles Robert Cockerell, who severally and jointly contributed to the massive expansion of Edinburgh 's New Town , including the Calton Hill development and the Moray Estate . Such was the popularity of the Doric in Edinburgh that

4582-417: The next generation of American architects. Greek revival architecture in the United States also included attention to interior decoration. The role of American women was critical for introducing a wholistic style of Greek-inspired design to American interiors. Innovations such as the Greek-inspired "sofa" and the " klismos chair" allowed both American women and men to pose as Greeks in their homes, and also in

4661-466: The number of figures was that by Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire for the La Madeleine Church in Paris. It represents the Last Judgement , with Jesus Christ in the centre, and was completed between 1826 and 1834; it is 125 ft (38 m) in length, and 23 ft (7.0 m) tall at its apex. In the United States, many government buildings in Washington DC carry large groups, as well as numerous State Capitols and important courthouses. Drafting

4740-482: The numerous portraits of the period that show them lounging in Greek-inspired furniture. The second phase in American Greek Revival saw the pupils of Latrobe create a monumental national style under the patronage of banker and philhellene Nicholas Biddle , including such works as the Second Bank of the United States by William Strickland (1824), Biddle's home "Andalusia" by Thomas U. Walter (1835–1836), and Girard College , also by Walter (1833–1847). New York saw

4819-455: The palace that is now the Hermitage Museum is another example of the style. During the late period of the Ottoman Empire, Greek Revival Architecture had its examples in the empire. The prominent examples are Istanbul Archaeology Museums (1891) The style was generally popular in northern Europe, and not in the south (except for Greece itself), at least during the main period. Examples can be found in Poland , Lithuania , and Finland , where

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4898-409: The pediments of the Parthenon, as the standard of the highest-quality art in antiquity. For Martin Schede, writing in 1923, the remains of limestone pediments, although "badly shattered indeed," represented "the highest artistic achievement of two generations of a most artistic people," the value of which was impossible to overestimate. The travel writer Solomon Charles Kaines Smith specifically named

4977-399: The physical triangular shape of a pediment, and the traditional themes that are usually employed for the subject matter, are, according to Ernest Arthur Gardner , "as exactly regulated as that of a sonnet or a Spenserian stanza : the artist has liberty only in certain directions and must not violate the laws of rhythm." In all examples, classical and modern, the central area below the apex

5056-444: The private enthusiasm of connoisseurs up to the first decade of the 19th century. An early example of Greek Doric architecture married with a more Palladian interior, is the facade of the Revett-designed rural church of Ayot St Lawrence in Hertfordshire, commissioned in 1775 by Lord Lionel Lyde of the eponymous manor. The Doric columns of this church, with their "pie-crust crimped" details, are taken from drawings that Revett made of

5135-407: The round, other temples the back-side of the sculptures are summarily or roughly finished. Some statues from the pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia are even hollowed out, to relieve weight. Aside from sculptural adornment of the tympanum , the triangular or sometimes curved area of a pediment, reclining figures were sometimes placed on the slanting sides above the pediment. Alternatively,

5214-533: The site museum) and others, but "they did not satisfy the Greek sculptor for long." Finally, in the Parthenon pediments (about 438–432) "we reach the climax of Greek pedimental composition". After the Parthenon there is no outstanding pedimental composition, at least now known. In the late or Hellenistic phase of Etruscan art , after about 300 BCE, Greek-style groups were introduced, but in terracotta rather than stone; some large fragments of these have survived. The Romans also used terracotta, but also stone for

5293-403: The small "Hydra pediment" in Athens (about 570 BCE), the "Bluebeard pediment from the 'old Athena temple' the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi (about 525 BCE), the Megarian Treasury at Olympia (about 520–510 BCE), the temple to Aphaia at Aigina (about 500–480 BCE), the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (about 465–460 BCE, the remains of the Eastern pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia are in

5372-446: The so-called Elgin Marbles , in their permanent collection. The rest of the pedimental sculpture from the Parthenon is now on display in the Acropolis Museum at Athens. Sculptures above lintels continued to be produced, indeed became more common, in post-classical architectural styles, but in recent times the medieval examples tend not to be called "pedimental sculptures", although it is technically correct to do so. "Tympanum reliefs"

5451-439: The south front of Hampton Court Palace ( Hercules Triumphing Over Envy , by Caius Cibber ), both buildings by Christopher Wren , and the Royal Palace of Amsterdam (1655, built as the City Hall). The expansion of the Louvre Palace under Louis XIV included much pedimental sculpture filling various shapes of tympanum. Buildings with military connections could surround heraldic devices with trophies of arms and armour to fill

5530-524: The space enclosed by the architectural element called the pediment . Originally a feature of Ancient Greek architecture , pedimental sculpture started as a means to decorate a pediment in its simplest form: a low triangle, like a gable , above an horizontal base or entablature . However, as classical architecture developed from the basis of Ancient Greek and Roman architecture, the varieties of pedimental sculpture also developed. The sculpture can be either freestanding or relief sculpture , in which case it

5609-415: The triangular pediment spread to large houses. Most buildings with pediments by Andrea Palladio followed the simpler formulae, but some of his villas around the Veneto feature large sprawling figures supporting the coat of arms, so that most of the tympanum is filled. Examples are the Villa Barbaro (completed c. 1558) and Villa Emo (by 1561). The small Tempietto Barbaro near the villa (c. 1583) has

5688-477: The whole space, as at Blenheim Palace and many Central European palaces, such as Nieborów Palace (on both fronts, in stucco). Otherwise, flanking angels or winged Victory figures, strapwork or other ornamental motifs, could fill the rest of the triangle. Heraldic sculptures The arrival of Neoclassical architecture favoured the return of large free-standing figure compositions in the pediments of important buildings, with Vilnius Cathedral (by 1783) one of

5767-523: Was a Corinthian invention. It is possible that it was devised specifically to contain sculpture, which from the early 6th century became "customary (though never obligatory)" in Doric temples; in Ionic ones it was a "rarity". A difference between the ancient Greek temple and temples of other, older, cultures of the Near East was that the visual effect and decoration of the exterior exceeded that of

5846-524: Was definitely not the case with the more luxurious marble temples, where colour was used sparingly to accentuate architectural highlights. Henri Labrouste also proposed a reconstruction of the temples at Paestum to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1829, decked out in startling colour, inverting the accepted chronology of the three Doric temples, thereby implying that the development of the Greek orders did not increase in formal complexity over time, i.e.,

5925-576: Was in a position to stamp his mark on Berlin after the catastrophe of the French occupation ended in 1813; his work on what is now the Altes Museum , Konzerthaus Berlin , and the Neue Wache transformed that city. Similarly, in Munich von Klenze's Glyptothek and Walhalla memorial were the fulfilment of Gilly's vision of an orderly and moral German world. The purity and seriousness of the style

6004-520: Was intended as an assertion of German national values and partly intended as a deliberate riposte to France, where it never really caught on. By comparison, Greek Revival architecture in France was never popular with either the state or the public. What little there is started with Charles de Wailly 's crypt in the church of St Leu-St Gilles (1773–80), and Claude Nicolas Ledoux 's Barriere des Bonshommes (1785–89). First-hand evidence of Greek architecture

6083-495: Was of very little importance to the French, due to the influence of Marc-Antoine Laugier 's doctrines that sought to discern the principles of the Greeks instead of their mere practices. It would take until Labrouste 's Neo-Grec of the Second Empire for Greek Revival architecture to flower briefly in France. Following the travels to Greece , Nicholas Revett, a Suffolk architect, and the better remembered James Stuart in

6162-636: Was used as a hospital during the American Civil War . The house has been featured in works on haunted houses because of its alleged association with the ghost of Tobe Means . The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1973. Orna Villa was the location of a college frat party in The Vampire Diaries . It is a contributing building within the Oxford Historic District which also

6241-524: Was very popular in the south of the US, where the Palladian colonnade was already popular in façades, and many mansions and houses were built for the merchants and rich plantation owners; Millford Plantation is regarded as one of the finest Greek Revival residential examples in the country. Other notable American architects to use Greek Revival designs included Latrobe's student Robert Mills , who designed

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