The Optical Corrections of the Doric Temple: Form and Meaning in Greek Sacred Architecture - Softcover

Prokkola, Tapio

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1936401762 ISBN 13: 9781936401765

Publisher: Two Harbors Pr, 2011

Synopsis

The optical corrections of the Doric temple were first thought to have been implemented to prevent optical distortions that would make the temple look faulty. This explanation has been repeated by scholars although some of them maintain that the corrections were implemented to bring vitality to the temple.Author Tapio Prokkola is an architect and a historian of ideas. He claims that actually the corrections were simply the means architects used to make the Doric temple an autarkic unity although it was composed of many -- a unity in plurality.This ideal became the fundamental ideal for the citizens of the Doric city-states. All of the most important features of life were organized according to this ideal, which was the ultimate symbol of the city-state.The author also claims that scholars' interpretation of Vitruvius was actually a misunderstanding of the architect of the Parthenon, because of different ideals between Classical Greece and the early Roman Empire.

About this title

About the Author

Tapio Prokkola was born in the wartime Finland in 1941. Being an adventurous mind he left his high school at the age of 15 to become a seaman in spite of the fact that he was among the best students in his class. After four years as a deckhand in mostly Swedish ships he became a land crab again and decided to return to his studies. He passed his high school in one year and started to study architecture. Later he got interested in the study of history as well and became a historian of ideas too. He has been working in the Oulu University as a lecturer for many years as well as a designer in several architectural offices. For the last fifteen years he has been running an architect's office together with his wife, Kaisu Mäkikyrö. Together they have also taken part in several architectural competitions having been rewarded one first prize, one second and several lower denominations. Tapio Prokkola never forgot his love for the sea; he has been sailing extensively in the Baltic and the North Sea for decades in his 32 feet sloop “Ifigeneia.” Together with his wife, he has also accomplished one circumnavigation and two voyages to South America, the last one in 2004-2005 mainly singlehanded. His favorite pastime on these voyages has been reading books about the history of ideas and architecture, and the book The Optical Corrections of the Doric Temple is in a way a culmination of this activity. He speaks fluently five languages and reads several more.AUTHOR HOME: Oulu, Finland

Edition details

• Publisher: Two Harbors Pr
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1936401762
• ISBN 13: 9781936401765
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 253