An architect and historian of ideas finally reveals the true meaning of the optical corrections of the Greek Doric temple.

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(Free-Press-Release.com) January 30, 2012 -- The optical corrections of the Doric temple were first mentioned by the Roman architect and writer Vitruvius. According to him they were meant to prevent optical distortions that otherwise would make the temple look faulty. This explanation has ever since been repeated by most scholars although some of them maintain that the corrections were actually implemented to bring vitality to the otherwise too static appearance of the temple.

Tapio Prokkola is an architect and a historian of ideas. In his book, “The Optical Corrections of the Doric Temple,” he claims that actually the corrections, as well as all the other, specifically Doric features of the Doric temple, were simply means of the architects to make the Doric temple an autarkic unity although it was composed of many, a unity in plurality. This ideal, based on the aristocratic value code and heroic outlook inherited from the heroic past, became the most fundamental ideal for the citizens of the Doric city-states along with the development of the polis. All most important features of life were organized according to this ideal: the polis itself, its military organization; the hoplite phalanx, and finally the Doric temple, which was the ultimate symbol of the city-state.

The Doric temple was developed from an uncertain beginning through many, often contradictory phases. During the archaic age some temples were built with extremely heavy constructions emphasizing thus the ideal of unity to the extreme, while some other were more open and pavilion like, emphasizing the ideal of plurality. In the classical age the final goal, the ideal of unity in plurality, was finally achieved in classical temples precisely with the help of the optical corrections. Thus the corrections were a tool deliberately used by the architects to achieve a positive result, not a desperate attempt to solve a “problem.”
The author also claims that the interpretation of Vitruvius was actually a misunderstanding of the words of Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon, because of different ideals between Classical Greece and the early Roman Empire.
Even many other specifically Doric features of the Doric temples are equally explained according to this same theory. They can shortly be listed as follows:
Why did the archaic and classical Doric architects pay no attention to the qualities of spatial organization of the temple precinct, the temenos?

Why was this peculiar building type chosen to represent the values connected with the Olympic religion?
What is the meaning of the most prominent outer feature of the temple, the peripteron, which is the ring of columns around the central core of the temple, the cella?
What is the true meaning of the so-called corner conflict of the Doric order, first mentioned by Vitruvius?
What is the meaning of the tapering and entasis of the Doric column in the set of the optical corrections?
What is the meaning of the nature of the Doric flutings: what was so fundamental about them that the Greeks never even experimented with other possibilities?

There are two more special features about the Doric column that need illumination. These are the lack of base under the column and the nature of the Doric capital. To be complete, our theory will have to be able to include even these features and explain them as well.
Finally, if our theory differs from the explanation of Vitruvius, as it certainly does, how can we explain this discrepancy?
All the above presented features are essential parts of the Doric order, and until we can understand them all as part of the same architectural intention having its basis in the ideals of the Greek city-states, we aren’t able to comprehend them at all. It is about time that we begin to understand this fundamental basis of our culture.

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