The classical period in Greece corresponds to the 5th and 4th centuries BC. It was succeeded by the Hellenistic period which lasted until the defeat of the only successor-state to Alexander's empire left in 30 BC. These periods provided politics, art, scientific thought, and philosophy that continues to influence our modern world. One that greatly affects the United States is Democracy, which was first seen in 507 BC and started the classical period. The thing that interested me the most about this period was their use of the golden ratio. Although they were not the first civilization the recognize this mathematical principle, they used it to produce amazing art in the form of architecture. The Greeks built the Parthenon using the golden ratio for aesthetic reasons and believed that the golden rectangle was a mathematical key to beauty. You can see Greece’s influence on architecture in the Jeffersonian architecture movement and the Greek Revival architecture movement.
top photo: Nashville Parthenon
bottom photo: Virginia State Capitol
The Virgina State capital resembles the Parthenon, and in 1897 an exact scale replica of the Parthenon was built in Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville became known as the “Athens of the South” because of the well accredited colleges in the area. The Watergate Tower (aka Sykes tower) in Downtown Tampa was built using the golden ratio, with 1,880 windows and 13 feet tall rooms from floor to floor. The “garden” of the Sykes tower and the two cubed buildings in front of the actual tower are based on the golden rectangle as well. Aristarchus of Samos, a Hellenistic Astronomer, proposed in the 3rd Century BC that sun was stationary and planets revolved around it while everyone else stilled believed in a geocentric model. This was the first documentation found that states this theory.
Group 1
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post, I really enjoyed the layout of the your post. Having the video as well as the different pictures showing you different examples of how the golden ratio was taken affect into the real world. Wish you would have given a more direct definition of what the golden ratio actually was, but other than that overall your blog post was great. What really stuck out to me when reading your blog post was the fact that you mentioned that Downtown Tampa actually used the golden ratio when designing most of their buildings, which I had no idea, even though I lived in Tampa for most of my life. I also agree with your point of view on that Classical Greece gave us a lot of influence in our modern world, especially with politics, art, scientific thought processes, and philosophy. All in all, you, as well as your group did a great job on this assignment.