Beginning Again with the Classical Orders

Beginning Again with the Classical Orders reconsiders well-established understandings of the Corinthian, Doric, and Ionic architectural orders that emerged during the Archaic and Classical periods in ancient Greece. The orders were significant not only in architecture, but also in myth and ritual, cosmology, and philosophical thought, informed by the ancient Greeks’ relation to nature as kosmos, “orderly, harmonious arrangement.”

Antonios Thodis looks at uses of the orders in temples and material remains as well as in ancient literature, showing their relationship to practical affairs and cultural practices such as the hōrai, “hours and seasons,” dikē, “justice,” and temenos, “sacred space.” The orders were compatible and complementary, tied through the overarching theme of seasonality.