Transcript of La Acrópolis de Atenas explicada con reconstrucciones

The Acropolis of Athens must have been one of the best natural fortresses of the ancient world. It rises about 91 meters at its highest point and is surrounded by steep slopes on all sides except to the west, where there is an accessible slope that the ancient Athenians used to ascend. During the 5th century BC, the city of Athens reached its peak under the rule of Pericles, a noted general and eloquent orator. This period of tranquility, located between the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, allowed the city to focus on various aspects, such as philosophy, art and architecture. As a consequence, most of the emblematic buildings that characterize the Acropolis were built during the time of Pericles. As you ascend the hill, the first building you come across, picturesquely situated on the southwestern spur of the Acropolis, is the Temple of Athena Nike, which stands on this platform, the purpose of which is to record the line of the top of the Acropolis in the bottom of the staircase. The temple has two facades, one facing the complex and the other facing the city. Due to its small space, the temple was designed as an amphiprostyle, which means that it has columns only in its front and back. Its name, Athena Nike, means “Athena the Victorious,” and it was built to commemorate the victory of the Athenians over the Persians. Since the Acropolis was considered a sacred place, to access the site they had to establish a transition from the secular and profane world to the sacred space, and to achieve this, they created this monumental building known as the Propylaea. At first glance, its façade may seem like that of a Doric temple, but it is not a temple, you simply advance through it, it serves as a majestic access door to the complex. The central intercolumnium is wider than the others, to allow passage for the procession that walked through it, which is why you see two unsupported triglyphs over the central space instead of one, since the architect had to break with the strict Doric order. And as the Propylaea ascend the hill, its scale begins to change, adjusting to the topography, but also adjusting to different hierarchical commitments, so that when it reaches the top of the hill, all this disorder and irregularity of forms becomes solidifies and becomes a single form that is much more orderly, decorous and appropriate to the meaning of a temple complex. There are therefore three pairs of Ionic columns flanking the passage, because the rising ground level and scale of the space dictated a preference for a more slender order. And at the opposite end, a second Doric style porch finished the central section. Passing through the Propylaea has the effect of compacting the space around you, obscuring the full view of the buildings located within, revealing them only in glimpses, helping to make arrival a more rewarding experience. And as you pass the structure, this impressive view is revealed, this is what Greek architecture does, this is the oblique view of the buildings, showing us how they rotate and how they integrate harmoniously into the site. There are three main objects that stand out in the composition: the colossal statue of Athena Promachos in the center, the Parthenon on the right and the Erechtheum on the left. The statue of Athena Promachos was an enormous bronze sculpture that reached an estimated height of 9 meters, and its location allowed the statue to be visible from a great distance, serving as a symbol of the city's strength and Athena's protection. The name, Athena Promachos, means “Athena who fights on the front line of battle.” The Erechtheion on the left is one of the most interesting buildings on the Acropolis, because it is very irregular in contrast to most Greek buildings, which tend to stand out for their symmetry and perfectly balanced proportions. It appears to be a collection of small buildings adjacent to each other, rather than constituting a single cohesive structure, and this relates to its architectural program and the mythology that surrounds the site. According to myth, when Athens was establishing itself as a city, the Athenians were in search of a patron deity to protect and bless their city. Two powerful Olympian gods, Athena and Poseidon, expressed interest in taking on this role, and to decide which of them deserved such a distinction, a contest was proposed. Each god was tasked with presenting a gift that demonstrated their worth and benefit to the city. Poseidon, the god of the sea and earthquakes, struck the ground with his powerful trident, and a spring emerged from the earth. However, the water was salty and did not meet the needs of the inhabitants. Then, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, war, and crafts, planted an olive tree, which quickly grew and prospered. The olive tree became a symbol of peace, prosperity and wisdom. The people found this gift most valuable, as it provided them with food, oil and wood, and therefore they chose her as their patron goddess and named the city “Athens” in her honor. And so, the eastern part of the Erechtheion, being the most important and with the main façade, was dedicated to the sanctuary of Athena Polias, which means Athena, protector of the city, and the western part to the sanctuaries of Erechtheus, the founder and first king of Athens, and from whom the building takes its name, and Poseidon. Therefore, programmatically it is a hybrid temple, and there is also a saltwater well inside the temple, and a hole in the roof representing the place where Poseidon struck the earth with his trident, as well as Athena's olive tree on the side. west of the building. The building is also hybrid in other aspects, such as the need to adapt to the particularities of the terrain: on one side, the building faces the elevated land while on the other side it faces a lower area, so this façade looks From this distance, while this facade is seen from all of Athens, this is the facade of the sanctuary of Poseidon that is linked to the city. It increases its scale so that it can be seen from afar, and reduces its scale because it is seen from a short distance, but it is also reduced to emphasize the hierarchies of the site, since the Parthenon is the main temple, so this small portico is make it small so that you can clearly understand that the Parthenon is the most important temple. These female figures that function as columns supporting the Erechtheion are called caryatids, which in Greek means "women of Carias," an ancient city near Sparta, and were condemned to slavery after betraying Athens in the Persian Wars. Vitruvius, an ancient Roman architect, describes Greek columns as if they were anthropomorphic, that is, with a human shape: the capital is the head, the shaft is the body, and the base represents the feet. And look at the folds of the tunic on the caryatid, they look very similar to the striations on the spine, or this looseness of fabric between the scrolls. They are truly spectacular and delicate, and it is wonderful how most of this great wall that faces the Parthenon is a smooth masonry wall that highlights the small portico of the caryatids that, through its scale, is placed in the background facing the Parthenon, but through its elegant design it maintains its own presence. The Parthenon is the canon of Greek architecture. The temple follows a peripteral design, which implies that it is surrounded by columns on all its faces, and this arrangement invites you to contemplate the building from all angles, not just from the front, and the same thing happens with all Greek buildings, at the same time. Entering the Acropolis you see the buildings from an oblique perspective. Unlike Egyptian or Roman architecture, Greek architecture is not arranged orthogonally with parallel axes and lines; Greek architecture is organized according to spatial points of view, that is, places from which it can be appreciated. The buildings are arranged so that they can be seen obliquely, as entirely three-dimensional objects that help us see and understand the landscape beyond. Although the Parthenon is the masterpiece of Doric architecture, it is octastyle, meaning that it has eight columns on the front and rear facades, unusual for a Doric temple, as most used to be hexastyle, with six columns. It had seventeen columns on each side, therefore, as in any classical Greek temple, the sides of the Parthenon have an odd number of columns and therefore a central column, so that your eye does not know where to rest its gaze, and thus quickly finds the front of the temple, since it is seen from an angle. The front has a clear center line on the doors creating a harmonious composition that clearly directs the eye. The building stands on a three-step platform called the stylobate, the dimensions of the top step are 69.54 meters by 30.88 meters, giving us a ratio of 4 to 9, which means that you can perfectly fit 36 ​​squares in the space of the Parthenon. Each of the steps is half a meter high, and as they were too steep to climb comfortably , intermediate steps were added in the center of the east and west ends. Also the Parthenon is so important because there was no building in ancient times, no Greek building, that had this level of decoration, this level of painting and sculpture like the Parthenon, and that is why it is so important, and this is a gem that we have the opportunity to see today in Athens. It is a building that has 8 columns in front, which makes it very large, the Parthenon is huge compared to other Greek temples. Being on the top of a mountain, seeing the Parthenon from afar, the marble was also whiter, so it shone more, it had a lot of color, it was a building with sculptures, with paint, so it must have been something impressive at that time to see this building in all its glory. It was built using white marble brought from Pentelicus, a mountain near the city, and was covered with marble tiles brought from the island of Paros. The original statues of the Parthenon are in the British Museum in London, but in Nashville, Tennessee, which is where I am right now, you can see behind me a scale reproduction of the Parthenon with its statues and in its original colors. This reproduction may give you a better idea of ​​what the Parthenon would have looked like in the fifth century BC. This 1:1 scale replica was built in 1897 for an international exhibition commemorating the centennial of the incorporation of Tennessee into the United States. And the best part of this building is that all the proportions, all the measurements, all the sizes were respected, so you can really feel the quality of the space that the Parthenon had inside in this building. The Greeks refined every detail of the temples to correct optical illusions. The long horizontal lines of architraves, stylobates, and cornices would appear to fall or curve in the center if built straight, and were therefore given a slightly convex outline towards the middle of their length. For example, in the Parthenon, the stylobate has an upward curvature on each of its sides. The vertical elements also lean inward to avoid the appearance of slumping; That is why in the Parthenon, the axes of the exterior columns lean inward by 67 mm, and if these axes were extended they would be at a distance of one mile above ground level . Barely perceptible, but these small adjustments create a balance and visual harmony that manage to hide all the imperfections that our eyes perceive. The shafts of the columns widen at the bottom and then decrease at the top, this change in diameter is called entasis, and its purpose is to achieve a more natural and pleasant visual effect, reducing the feeling of rigidity than completely straight columns. they could give, almost looking like a tense muscle that expresses the physical load sustained by the spine. This drawing exaggerates all of these distortions so you can better understand how all the straight lines on the Parthenon are not actually straight. Of course all these optical corrections were respected when they built the replica in Nashville. As I mentioned, the English took most of the original sculptures from the Parthenon, and now it is only possible to appreciate the original appearance of the Parthenon if you go to Nashville. The eastern pediment, the one over the main entrance, represents the birth of Athena, who emerged from the head of her father Zeus as a fully formed and adult warrior. There is a statue of Nike, the goddess of Victory, flying to place the laurel wreath on Athena's helmet, thus commemorating Greece's recent defeat of the Persians and making the Parthenon an offering of thanks to its patron goddess. And the western pediment is a representation of the contest between Athena and Poseidon to determine who would be the patron saint of Athens. Both pediments have free-standing statues with great plasticity, you can even see how some of them seem to protrude from the triangular frame, creating a sense of three-dimensional depth. Above the columns, there was a set of 96 triglyphs and 92 metopes. Metopes were square pieces of marble with scenes in high relief, usually with two figures. There was a different theme on each side of the building, each representing the Greeks fighting a different civilization: the metopes on the eastern side represent fights between gods and giants, on the western side, between Greeks and Amazons, on the southern side, between centaurs and lapiths, and in the north, scenes from the Trojan War. You can see a small hole under each metope on the eastern and western facades. They used to hold bronze shields presented by Alexander the Great in 334 BC with dedicatory inscriptions in bronze letters. There is another frieze in the Parthenon, this is a continuous band sculpted in bas-relief that used to surround all the internal walls of the colonnade. It shows the Panathenaic procession, a great event that was held every four years in Athens in honor of the goddess Athena. This procession included Athenian citizens, dignitaries, musicians, and priests carrying various offerings and artifacts to present at the Parthenon. The entire frieze can be seen up close in the Acropolis museum, although most of the pieces are plaster copies, as the originals are in the British Museum in London, along with much of the Acropolis. On the eastern side, the façade of the building had a portico known as the pronaos with a huge bronze door leading inside, called the naos. This 19 meter long chamber was divided into a central nave and two side aisles thanks to two rows of ten Doric columns with three columns at the western end, this created a continuous corridor around three sides of the naos. These columns supported an upper row of smaller Doric columns which in turn supported the roof beams. Near the western end was the famous statue of Athena Parthenos or “Athena the Virgin,” which depicted the goddess fully armed with spear, helmet, aegis, and shield, holding in her right hand a winged victory, or Nike. This statue was a “chryselephantine” work, from the Greek “chrysos” (gold) and “elephantines” (ivory). It was about 12 meters high, including the pedestal, and was built on a wooden core. The gold plates of which it was partially composed were removable and could be removed in case of danger. The face, hands and feet were made of ivory, but the clothing, armor and accessories were made of solid gold, and precious stones were inlaid for the eyes. The original statue did not survive the Middle Ages, but the one I am showing is the reproduction found inside the Parthenon in Nashville. Well, this is more or less what the interior of the Parthenon would have looked like in the fifth century BC with the enormous statue of the goddess Athena. The smaller chamber on the opposite side is the Parthenon, from which the entire temple took its name. The word Parthenon means “the chamber of the virgin”, and was used as a hieratic treasure. Due to their smaller dimensions and considerable height, the use of Doric columns would have required exaggerated proportions, occupying an amount significant space, so instead it was supported by four Ionic columns. This chamber was accessed from the opisthodome, the porch at the back of the building. These chambers were enclosed by walls 1.21 meters thick, and on the outside, surrounding the building, there was a peristyle 2.74 meters wide on the sides and 3.25 meters on the fronts. The pronaos and opisthodomus had six columns in the front forming a portico on an upper stylobate of two steps. Both were used as treasuries, and to secure them, metal bars that reached the ceiling were mounted between the columns. The Parthenon is undoubtedly one of the best examples of the application of the Golden Ratio in architecture. The architects must have had a great knowledge of geometry to be able to achieve this building. Just look at how many projection lines I need to draw the facade. Each part has a geometric relationship with the others, and you can find golden rectangles everywhere. However, Greek architects did not draw detailed architectural plans like this, rather they used simple tools such as ropes, measuring sticks, and plumb lines to establish the building's dimensions, alignments, and geometric relationships. And they did all this directly on site. We know the names of the architects of the Acropolis: the temple of Athena Nike was built by Callicrates, the Propylaea and the Erechtheum were the work of Mnesicles, and the Parthenon was built by Ictinos and Callicrates. The construction of the entire Acropolis complex was coordinated and supervised by the great sculptor Phidias, who was also responsible for the sculptural details of the Parthenon, including the friezes and pediments, as well as the large cult statue of Athena Parthenos. And although the official architects of the Parthenon were Ictinos and Callicrates, Phidias was responsible for the final appearance of the Parthenon, its proportions, its dimensions. His statue of Athena was made for the temple, and the temple was made for the statue, as the size of the interior is perfectly proportioned to house this 12 meter tall sculpture. Phidias built the Parthenon. At the top of the Acropolis, there were several secondary buildings, mainly treasuries, altars and small sanctuaries dedicated to different gods. The arrangement of the buildings on the Acropolis was drawn in such a way as to emphasize the sense of procession. As the visitor emerged from the eastern porch of the Propylaea there was the great statue of Athena Promachos just left of centre, balancing the majestic Parthenon which stood further back to the right. The architects of the Acropolis intended for visitors to first view the Parthenon from an angle where the west façade and north colonnade presented the essence of the temple's volume at a single glance. The entrance to the sanctuary was reached by following an ascending path that passed along the north side of the Parthenon, from where they could see the exposed foundations of the ancient Temple of Athena, which was destroyed by the Persians on their left, and turning south in the corner to climb the steps towards the eastern porch. Only after experiencing the entirety of the temple's exterior would the magnificence of the interior be revealed. The Parthenon has had a great influence on history; Thanks to him, the Greek type of temple has endured to this day, because its very form symbolizes concepts that we associate with the greatness of Greece, such as the birthplace of democracy or the cradle of high cultural institutions, a place where architecture , art and theater reached their peak, where philosophy flourished. Therefore, it is no coincidence that we see banks shaped like temples, or academic buildings with temple pediments, or churches or government buildings inspired by classical architecture. But the legacy of the Parthenon goes beyond its physical remains; It also reminds us that our creations also have the power to inspire, to transcend time and to speak to the minds of future generations. The Acropolis was the most Holy part of the city, but there was much more to Athens than just the Acropolis, and if you want to understand the city of Athens in its entirety, I recommend that you go watch my video explaining Athens. Thank you very much for joining me, I hope you have learned and enjoyed, please hit the like button and subscribe to my channel. Thanks again and we'll see you very soon in the next episode. Bye bye!