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04 · Classical & Gothic Revivals

Greek Revival

c. 1820–1860

The Greek temple front reborn: full-height columns, a wide plain band above them, and a low triangular gable.

Look for

Classical column Pediment Portico
Second Bank of the United States, Philadelphia: an example of Greek Revival architecture
Second Bank of the United States, Philadelphia. Photo: Bestbudbrian, CC BY-SA 4.0
Walhalla, Donaustauf, Germany
Walhalla Donaustauf, Germany · Wolfgang Pehlemann, CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Altes Museum, Berlin, Germany
Altes Museum Berlin, Germany · Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0
Tennessee State Capitol, Nashville
Tennessee State Capitol Nashville · Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0
St Pancras New Church, London, England
St Pancras New Church London, England · Original uploader was Sue Wallace at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.0

what it is

Greek Revival buildings are modeled on the temples of ancient Greece. The main feature is a temple front: a row of columns, often in the plain Doric order or the Ionic order with scroll-shaped tops, carrying a wide, plain entablature (the horizontal band resting on the columns) and a low triangular pediment. Wooden American houses imitate this with a gable facing the street, wide trim boards under the roof and flat pilasters at the corners, usually painted white.

In London, Robert Smirke's British Museum (1823-1847) has a south front of Ionic columns copied from the temple of Athena Polias at Priene, in present-day Turkey. In Philadelphia, William Strickland based the Second Bank of the United States (1819-1824) on the Parthenon, with eight Doric columns, and Town and Davis's Custom House on Wall Street in New York (1834-1842), now Federal Hall, also has Parthenon-style Doric columns. Earlier Neoclassical architects drew mainly on Roman buildings, with arches and Corinthian columns; Greek Revival designers preferred Doric and Ionic columns.

how to spot one

Classical column A column based on Greek and Roman designs, with a base, shaft, and decorative capital. It is often used to frame windows or entrances. Pediment A low triangle over columns, a door or a window, framed by a projecting ledge called a cornice. It comes from Greek temple roof ends and is common on Neoclassical and Greek Revival buildings. Portico A porch at a building's main entrance with a roof carried on columns, often topped by a pediment (a low triangle). It is common on Neoclassical, Greek Revival and Palladian buildings.

Also look for

PilasterCorniceDentil moldingSash windowSymmetrical facade

history

The style rested on new, measured knowledge of Greek buildings. James Stuart and Nicholas Revett surveyed the ancient monuments of Athens and published the first volume of The Antiquities of Athens in 1762. Greek forms appeared in British and German buildings around 1800. After 1813 Karl Friedrich Schinkel rebuilt central Berlin with buildings such as the Neue Wache (1818), and Smirke began the British Museum in 1823. After the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829), the new Greek state also used the style for public buildings.

From 1820 to 1850 Greek Revival was the dominant style in the United States. Pattern books such as Asher Benjamin's Practical House Carpenter (1830) gave carpenters temple-front details, and the style spread through the northern states and Ohio's Western Reserve and into the South, for banks, churches, courthouses and plantation houses. In the 1840s Andrew Jackson Downing and other writers promoted Gothic Revival and Italianate designs instead. The style lost favor in the 1850s and especially after the Civil War, though Greek Revival details continued in some regions into the 1870s.

where to find it

The Altes Museum in Berlin, the British Museum in London, and courthouses and antebellum homes across the United States.

architects

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

easy to confuse with

Panthéon, an example of Neoclassical Neoclassical Buildings modeled closely on Greek and Roman temples: grand columned porches, domes, and plain, symmetrical walls. Massachusetts State House, an example of Federal Federal Refined American Georgian: oval fanlights over doors, slender proportions, and delicate garland ornament. Palais Garnier, an example of Beaux-Arts Beaux-Arts Gilded Age grandeur: paired giant columns, rough-cut stone bases, rooftop sculpture, and monumental stairs.