218 Architecture in the United States. 



Corinthian. — Gay and showy : to be employed in edifices adapted 

 to such purposes as these. 



The Grecian Temple Form. 



Can the Grecian temple form be applied to modern uses ? This 

 question is pressed upon us by the inherent beauty of the form 

 itself, and by the fact that there is scarcely an oblong building in the 

 country, with pillars, that does not claim to be modelled after the 

 Parthenon or some other Grecian or Roman temple. In the last ar- 

 ticle I endeavored to give the reader an idea of the Grecian temple 

 of the Peripteral form, that is, with pillars all around : in addition to 

 this was the Prostyle, having a row of pillars only at one end ; the 

 Amphiprostyle, with a row at each end ; the Dipteral, with a double 

 row all around; and the Pseudo-Dipteral, with a single row all 

 around, but this placed as far from the cell, as if another one had 

 intervened. The Peripteral was the one usually employed. In 

 the choice of the ground itself, the Greeks seem not to have been 

 very particular. The Parthenon was on a steep eminence : the 

 temple of Minerva at Cape Sunium was also on an eminence, of 

 steep ascent : but the temples of Theseus, of Ceres at Eleusis, of 

 Venus at Egina, and the massive temple at Corinth, were on ground 

 nearly or quite on a level with that around, though eminences in all 

 these cases might have been easily procured. I should myself pre- 

 fer an elevated spot for a Grecian building, but this seems by no 

 means to have been considered essential. The side of a hill how- 

 ever should never be chosen, when it can be avoided. The Greeks 

 seem to have been particularly careful to have the peribolus or area, 

 from which the temple was to rise, horizontal ; and in the case of 

 the temples at Cape Sunium, and of Jupiter Olympus at Athens, 

 high walls are built up in several spots to support the filling up of 

 ground necessary for this. Indeed, few large buildings can appear 

 to advantage when the ground is higher on one side than on the 

 other. The pavement or floor of their temples was never elevated 

 more than about three feet (the ascent was by three steps) above the 

 peribolus, and the whole elevation of the temple was formed to this. 

 A basement story therefore, or any thing resembling it, is certainly 

 out of character : when there may chance to be an absolute neces- 

 sity for one, we should avoid giving it the appearance of any connex- 

 ion with the remainder of tlie building ; which may easily be done by 

 making it of coarse rubble work, or by a large offset, and by having its 



