Classical Greek Architectural Design: A Quantitative Approach

Abstract

In many ways, this monograph is a methodological summary of the work I have carried out on Greek architectural design over the past twenty years or more.The case studies analysed here stretch from my first fieldwork project on the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea which started in 1993 to the on-going research collaboration on the city-scape of Naxos in Sicily.I took the first steps towards the statistical analysis of Greek foot-units in 1999 by developing a computer program to analyse building dimensions: some of the final motivation behind the software was to try to stop my post-graduate student Esko Tikkala from being drawn into the shapeless muddle of architectural studies on Greek foot-standards.I was soon nudged by Mike Baxter towards Kendall's cosine quantogram analysis as a useful statistical method and my work then evolved towards a quantitative analysis of Classical architectural design rather than just foot-units.Three fieldwork projects are at the basis of case studies presented in Chapter IV.My work in 1993-1998 on Classical architecture at Tegea was part of the Norwegian excavation project directed by Erik Østby: I cannot thank him enough for the continuous support over the years.I directed and carried out the fieldwork at the temple of Zeus at Stratos under the auspices of the Finnish Institute at Athens in 2000-2001.The permissions to carry out the fieldwork at Tegea and Stratos were granted by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and supported by the local Ephorates of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities at Tripolis and Patras and their Ephors at the time, Theodoros Spyropoulos and Lazaros Kolonas.Since 2006 I have collaborated with Maria Costanza Lentini, the director of the Museum of Naxos in Sicily, on the architecture of the ancient town, and our new co-operation concentrates on the overall city design: I am very grateful to her for the chance to work at this unique site and the warm hospitality I have always been shown.During the final phase of writing, the comments on the manuscript by Ann Brysbaert and Björn Forsén have been of especial value.The following persons have also read various stages of the chapters of this book, and their comments have been more than welcome: Jim Coulton, Manolis Korres, Seppo Mustonen, Erik Østby, Boris Rankov, Esko Tikkala and Richard Tomlinson.Various anonymous referees have had their input into this work,

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