Before the 7th century BCE, Greek temples were constructed of wood. When the Greeks learned stone constructionãfrom the Egyptians ãthey began to replace the wood in their temples with stone. Several elements of the temple, such as the triglyph, retained the appearance of their original wood construction.

There are several expressive elements of Greek temples. The column is the vertical support. Columns in Greek temples are evenly spaced in rows called colonnades. The space between columns, which helps convey a sense of rhythm and dynamism, is called intercolumniation. You can feel this best by walking along or looking at different colonnades with varying proportions of intercolumniation. There were classical terms to identify those rhythms. The closest the columns came to each other was 1.5 diameters (Pycnostyle). The widest was 4 diameters (Araeostyle). Vastly different impressions are conveyed by different styles of intercolumniation.

Some columns include a base, which is called the pedestal, the support directly below a single column. A colonnade is placed on the stylobateãthe top step of a 3-stepped platform called the crepidome, which is the base for the entire structure. The vertical columns support the horizontal lintel, called the entablature. The entablature consists of three horizontal elements: the architrave (usually plain), the frieze (usually decorated), and the cornice (the roof, which may be horizontal or raking). Where the column meets the architrave (the lowest of the entablature's three elements) is the capital. The capital is decorated in one of several distinctive ways, related to one of three Greek Orders.

Three different styles (called Orders) associated with these Greek temples have become part of the language of architecture, and have been used with extensive variation and enormous imagination since Classical times. They are the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian, which is a variation on the Ionic. (Later, the Romans added the Tuscan, a simplified Doric, and the Composite, combining the Ionic with the Corinthian.) Columns with their pedestals and entablatures were designed according to certain accepted proportions, in part because it was through proportion (the harmony of numbers) that the Greek mind came to understand nature, and from nature, art. Although there are many differences among these three styles, they are most easily distinguished by how each decorates the capital.

The capital is where the column meets the entablature. Without a capital the joint would look primitive or haphazard and unmadeãtake a look at the remarkable stone temple at Stonehenge, or, closer to home, notice how the I-beams hold up the elevated train. Capitals provide a decorative link which softens the joint between the vertical thrust of the columns and the horizontal dominance of the entablature.

The capital in the Doric Order is the simplest of the three, consisting of a ring where the fluted column ends, a tapering neck called the echinus, and a flat, square block called an abacus. The Doric column sits directly on the stylobate, with no base. The proportions of the Doric column are based on the height being roughly 4 ‚ 6.5 times the diameter of the column at the base. There are usually 20 flutes separated from each other by arrises. The flute is a long, rounded vertical ridges that run up and down the column shaft. The arris is the line that separates one flute from anther. Doric columns tend to be relatively short and squatãthey are said to be based on the proportions of a male figure. The Doric entablature is about a quarter the size of the entire Order, including both column and entablature. The frieze is decorated with triglyphs and metopes.

The capital in the Ionic mode is decorated (as the Doric is not) and is recognizable by distinctive scrolled, spiral volutes on both sides. The decoration on ionic capitals is frequently an egg-and-dart motif on the echinus. The Ionic column is supported by a base, consisting of two convex mouldings, each called a torus, above and below a concave molding called a scotia. This base is called the Attic base. The Ionic column is approximately 9 times the height of the diameter at the base. The Ionic entablature is about a fifth the height of the Order as a whole. The frieze is not decorated with triglyphs and metopes.

The Corinthian capital, an elaborate variation of the Ionic capital, is decorated with acanthus leaves (an herbal shrub) and sometimes volutes on both sides. [The story of the Corinthian capital is that an architect saw a basket that had been left unattended while an acanthus plant grew up around it. Pleased by the decorative effect, he copied it for a capital.] The Doric column is about ten times as high as the diameter at the base. Its base is often Attic. Both Ionic and Corinthian columns tend to be long and slenderãsupposedly more feminine in aspect than the masculine, even military, Doric.

Columns demonstrate entasis, which is a slight (almost unnoticeable) curve, so that the base of the column is wider than the top. Entasis makes columns pleasing to look at because it seems natural that things closer to the ground will be thicker than what soars above the ground. (Also, paradoxically, columns that were absolutely straight would appear to us as curved or tilted, so the curvature helps make them look straight, from our perspective.)

Columns are constructed of different stone sections called drums which are piled end on end to the length of the column. As indicated, columns were designed with a certain proportion between their diameter at the base and their length. There are several different aspects of columns. Free-standing columns stand alone, engaged columns emerge from the wall, and pilasters are flat representations of columns that are carved in relief on the wall.

The entablature consists of three elements, all held up by the columns: the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice. The architrave is the horizontal beam-like device that lies across the columns. It is usually plain and undecorated. Above the architrave is the frieze , a decorated horizontal element consisting in the Doric mode of alternating devices: triglyphs and metopes. Triglyphs represent the squared-off rafter-ends: temples were originally constructed of wood, and rafters lay over the roofs, and you could see where they were sawed off. When stone replaced wood, some elements, such as the triglyph (the sawed-off rafter-end) and the spaces between them, called metopes, were retained. Metopes are little rectilinear frames that are often decorated with sculptures carved in relief. In the Ionic and Corinthian modes, the frieze is not broken up into triglyphs and metopes, so the decoration is continuous and extends the length of the temple. Triglyphs are aligned directly above the columns and between them.

Other decorative elements include guttae, small cones which hang below the triglyph, thought to represent pegs used in original wood construction of these temples, dentils, square blocks in a row, and the acroterion, sculptures on the cornice. The cornice is the topmost element of the temple, which hangs over the edge. The horizontal cornice lies flat over the entire structure. A cornice may be pitched at an angle (raking cornice) to let rain flow away.

At either end of the rectangular temple where the raking cornice comes to an end, there is a triangular gable end of the roof called the pediment. The flat triangular space framed by the pediment is the tympanum. Decoration in the tympanum, which often consists of sculpture or sculpture in relief, is constrained by the sharp angles created by the pitch of the roof.

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