The finest
example, and one of the noblest monuments of Greek architecture,
is that at the west end of the Athenian Acropolis. The stoa may be
defined as a building having an open range of columns on at least
one side. Usually its length was much greater than its depth.
Stoas were often built in sacred precincts, as at Olympia, and
also for secular purposes along public streets, as in Athens.
These and other buildings into which the column entered as an
integral feature involved no new architectural elements or
principles.
One highly important fact about Greek architecture has thus far
been only touched upon; that is, the liberal use it made of color.
The ruins of Greek temples are to-day monochromatic, either
glittering white, as is the temple at Sunium, or of a golden
brown, as are the Parthenon and other buildings of Pentelic
marble, or of a still warmer brown, as are the limestone temples
of Paestum and Girgenti (Acragas). But this uniformity of tint is
due only to time. A "White City," such as made the pride of
Chicago in 1893, would have been unimaginable to an ancient Greek.
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