The Nature Of Ancient Greek Architecture And Modern Enlightenment

Undoubtedly, ancient Greek architecture is not only one of the miracles of ancientGreek civilization, but also the paragon of the combination of technology and art.Artistry derived from the perfect combination of ancient Greece’s technology and artenables the construction of ancient Greek architecture to achieve the high degree oforder and harmonious unity in terms of function, structure and form, which in turnmakes its space as a whole unveil the place spirit that accords with the living world ofancient Greece. After the industrial revolution, technology and art begin to split witheach other.Along with the reinvigoration of modernist architecture in early20th century,modern architecture’s space, form, structure and function have all been greatlyinfluenced by the modern industrial technology, and the art split from the technology isalso surrounded by machine aesthetics. As a result, modern architecture has lost itsplace spirit and become a resident machine, which puts human into the risk ofhomelessness. Thereby, the discussion and consideration of the great crises the modernarchitecture faces and their respective solution according to the retrospection of theessence of ancient Greek architecture and historical development of the combinationand split of technology and art will provide an important theoretical enlightenment forthe development of contemporary architecture.This article consists of four parts aside from introduction.In the first part, this article first makes an explicit analysis on the etymology oftechnology and art so as to unveil the internal relation between technology and art. Next,it discusses the close relation between the living world of ancient Greek and artistry as well as artistry’s importance towards ancient Greek architecture.In the second part, this article discusses some ideas regarding art from famousancient philosophers, such as Plato, Aristotle and Martin Heidegger, and makes aconclusion that imitation is the human nature. In essence, ancient philosophers regardall kinds of arts as imitation, which is the earliest origin of art. Furthermore, thingsmade by ancient artisans are also the incomplete imitation of their ideas. Consequently,technology and art are homologous in essence, while art is perfectly contained intechnology. Modern philosophers also regard technology and art as homology.Artistry has been put to a position which is more important than artists and works of art.In the third part, this article mainly talks about Vitruvius’ architectural idea, whodivided building’s structure into equilibrium, column type, central part of column andconstruction. Moreover, it discusses the construction process of ancient Greekarchitectures and sets up a place spirit of humanistic experience. Taking Parthenon as anexample, this article also makes a further explication on the high degree of order andharmonious unity of ancient Greek architectures.At last, according to above analysis, this article criticizes the fact that art, as theexternal form of architectures, has been surrounded by machine aesthetics, which hasdeprived modern architectures of their place spirit and makes them to be the simpleresident machines. Consequently, people now are facing homeless crisis. Inconclusion, studying and analyzing the essential meaning of ancient Greek architecturesand the great crises modernist architectures now are facing according to the historicaldevelopment of the combination and split of technology and art could facilitate thefuture development of contemporary architecture.