Did you ever have the uncanny feeling you seem to run into a Greek(-ish) temple on every holiday? You are not alone. In 2017 we decided to figure out where we could possibly run into them and why this architype is still being build. So we started to collect temple front’s. This website is the place where we keep and analyze our collection.
Our hypothesis was that there is a temple for every year that there are humans since the Greek. But we already see that there is a gap between the Romans and Palladio. From the Renaissance on most of the years are already provided for.
You can find a world map with temples, the temples through time (after more than two millennia we still build them), and information on specific temples. This is still very much in progress.
Karen & Nick
We are amazed that the Greek temple typology is still very much in use and the same as over two and a half millennia ago. But what exactly do we see as a Greek temple front?
It’s basically the temple you see in your head when you think of a Greek temple. It’s a building type but also used a lot for logo’s and icons. For example the icon for museum on maps and signs and the logo for UNESCO. It consists of a platform, with a few columns and a triangular top. There are more architectural terms for all of the parts of a temple front but the idea is as simple as that.
We do use some guides as to which temples count for the collection. Like it needs to be an entrance and it needs to have depth. The formal definition (with point system) is in the making so we can separate the nicer ones from de demi-temples.
This page shows the temples on a world map. The temples are colored by year of completion. Temples before the current era are dark purple. Temples up to the middle ages are light purple. And from the Renaissance on colors are scales per 100 years from green to yellow. So older temples are dark and newer temples are light. The spread of temples over the world is clearly visable trough time.
