From my architecture site. The former First Presbyterian Church on the Russell Sage Campus is one of the earliest and most accurate examples of Greek Revival Temple architecture in the U.S. While it is often referred to as a replica of the famous Parthenon it is more likely to have been based on the less famous - but well known to architects - Temple of Hephaestus or Thesion. The difference is in the number of columns found along the front of the building. Thesion represents the more commonly found Hexastyle while the Parthenon was built in the rarer Octostyle which, as its name implies, employed an eight column frontage as opposed to Hexastyles six. Whats the difference of a couple of columns, right? To the Greeks, it was an important distinction. Architect John Mesick explains what happens to our visual perception when one is viewing these two styles of ancient Greek architecture.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 19:03:25 +0000