Greek and Roman uses of the classical orders Essay

When looking at the architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome, it is important to see where their influences and motivations are, and the direct relation to the cultural values of the respective societies.   The ancient and original orders of architecture are the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, which were invented by the Greeks, and adopted by the Romans.   Their use of the classical orders on the surface appear very similar, but looking closer at the role of   these structural elements within the building they are a part of, you see vast differences that take their roots from the definitive differences in the values of the Greeks to the values of the Romans.   It could be said that the Greeks were the artists, the Romans were the engineers; now this is a rather broad statement, nothing is as black and white as that, but it very much so describes the difference in the styles.
The Greek Doric order was the earliest of the classical orders, known from the 7th century BC and reaching its mature form in the 5th century BC. In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the stylobate of a temple without a base; their vertical shafts were fluted with parallel concave grooves; and they were topped by a smooth capital that flared from the column to meet a square abacus at the intersection with the entablature that they carried.   A pronounced feature of both Greek and Roman versions of the Doric order are the triglyphs and metopes.   The triglyph is largely thought to be a representation in stone of the wooden beam ends of the typical primitive hut.   A metope is the space between two triglyphs of a Doric frieze. Metopes were often decorated with carvings; the most famous example is the metopes of the frieze of the Parthenon.   The Greeks felt that the corner triglyph should form the corner of the entablature, creating an inharmonious mismatch with the supporting column. Which is more symbolic of what the entabulature would have looked like in primitive buildings....