Comparing The Parthenon And The Pantheon

Greek and Roman civilisations were the first western civilisations to flourish. The two civilisations which were based in Athens and Rome -respectively- introduced new building techniques and materials. As a result, their architecture remain relevant until present day. While the Parthenon of Athens captures ideal Greek standards in architecture, the Pantheon of Rome shows the great advances that Roman architecture reached. The impact of each building shows in terms of materials, building technique and overall design.

The Parthenon being the first temple to be built completely out of Pentelic marble (Millender and Nice, n.d.), it has greatly inspired the usage of marble in other greek buildings afterwards. Marble became one of the most commonly
“Entasis” was used in the construction of the Parthenon. It is a type of optical illusion which was used to correct the way temples are seen from a distance to give the illusion of a perfect look. This was achieved by having the columns to be inclined inwards and having the space between corner columns “intercolumniation” shrunk, with a curvature in the flooring of the building. All of this ensured that the temple looked horizontal and upright. (Millender and Nice, n.d.) Consequently, the usage of optical correction in building began. In the Pantheon, a different set of construction methods were introduced. For starters, the dome roof of the Pantheon had coffers. Coffers are special, square-like, sunken parts of the ceiling, as to decrease the load and pressure on the building. Moreover, these coffers gave a sense of depth and vastness to the infamous roman temple. (Fazio, Moffett and Wodehouse, 2014) Coffers were used in numerous roman buildings, possibly as an influence of the Pantheon over them. Roman buildings that had coffers include the Maison-Carée Temple at Nime in the south of France, Temple of Venus and Rome, and Basilica Maxentius in Rome, Italy. Another point is that the large dome of the Pantheon was unsupported. Its method of construction remains mysterious until today, which shows the great level of advance in architecture. The dome covering the building, which is about 43 metres in diameter and 22 metres high, remained the biggest unsupported dome for almost 1000 years. (Encyclopædia Britannica,