peristyle and polis. Development and functions of public Greek courtyards

ISBN-13: 9783110280654

short text

Peristyle buildings could fulfill a multitude of public functions within the Greek cities: they served as sanctuaries, banquet buildings, gymnasiums, offices or market buildings. What all buildings have in common, however, is their spatial organization around the central courtyard and the resulting isolation from the outside world. This observation forms the starting point for the thesis that the building form generally served to form closed rooms for exclusive groups of people. The investigation is based on numerous individual studies. From these emerges the image of a system that has been thought out down to the last detail, making the buildings seem hermetically sealed from the outside, while inside numerous rooms open onto the central courtyard.

The phenomenon is then classified in the broader context of ancient architectural and social history . The author proves that the emergence and rapid spread of the peristyle building idea in the 4th century B.C. BC are closely related to the process of monumentalization and diversification of Greek cities taking place at the same time. The work thus combines a comprehensive question with material-oriented detailed investigations.

Tags: building research, urban development, Greece, courtyards, polis history, peristyle buildings, architecture, society, antiquity.

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