Cover The museum’s Ionic colonnade and pediment sculpture, part of its neoclassical architecture, seen from the forecourt in daylight (Photo: iStock)
The museum’s Ionic colonnade and pediment sculpture, part of its neoclassical architecture, seen from the forecourt in daylight (Photo: iStock)
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As Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey sends audiences searching for the architecture of ancient Greece, a look at the buildings that actually shaped that image — not from Homer’s era, but from the neoclassical architecture revival of the 18th and 19th centuries that followed
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has audiences searching out the architecture of ancient Greece this summer. Most of what they’ll find is a few thousand years too late. The columns and white facades people picture as “ancient Greek” mostly date to a revival that swept through 18th- and 19th-century Europe, America and its colonies, not to Homer’s Bronze Age. Here are eight buildings from that revival are still standing and still in use.
British Museum, London
Above Robert Smirke’s Ionic colonnade wraps the museum’s forecourt, its pediment sculpture added several years after the facade’s 1852 completion (Photo: WikiCommons/Ham)
Robert Smirke’s Ionic colonnade wraps the museum’s forecourt, its pediment sculpture added several years after the facade’s 1852 completion (Photo: WikiCommons/Ham)
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Robert Smirke completed the museum’s collonaded facade in 1852, its forty-four Ionic columns modelled on temples he had studied in Greece and Sicily. By the mid-19th century, Greek Revival had become the default architectural language for institutions built to project permanence and learning. Norman Foster later redesigned the Great Court behind it, but Smirke’s original facade is untouched, and millions of visitors pass beneath it each year.
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US Capitol, Washington D.C.
Above The US Capitol’s Corinthian colonnade and dome were completed in phases across the 19th century as the union expanded (Photo: Unsplash/Harold Mendoza)
The US Capitol’s Corinthian colonnade and dome were completed in phases across the 19th century as the union expanded (Photo: Unsplash/Harold Mendoza)
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Construction began in 1793 and continued across the 19th century as the union expanded, with the dome and wings added later. The dome itself is Roman in derivation, but the flanking porticoes and columns are Greek Revival, chosen deliberately by the young republic to borrow the visual vocabulary of Athenian democracy. State capitols, courthouses and banks across the 19th-century United States picked up the same grammar. The building has been in continuous legislative use since it was built.
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Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
Above The memorial at dusk, its Doric temple form modelled directly on the Parthenon at architect Henry Bacon’s insistence (Photo: Unsplash/Andi Feliciotti)
Above Each of the Lincoln Memorial’s 36 Doric columns is inscribed with the name of a state in the Union at Lincoln’s death (Photo: Unsplash/Kip Williams)
The memorial at dusk, its Doric temple form modelled directly on the Parthenon at architect Henry Bacon’s insistence (Photo: Unsplash/Andi Feliciotti)
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Architect Henry Bacon studied the Parthenon directly before designing the memorial, and the result is closer to a temple reconstruction than most Greek Revival buildings attempt. Thirty-six Doric columns represent the thirty-six states in the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death; four more were added inside for the states admitted afterwards. Completed in 1922, the memorial has hosted major moments in American public life since, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 address, and remains open to the public daily.
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Altes Museum, Berlin
Above Schinkel’s 1830 facade, its dedication inscribed in Latin above an Ionic colonnade facing Berlin’s Lustgarten (Photo: Unsplash/feinschliff)
Schinkel’s 1830 facade, its dedication inscribed in Latin above an Ionic colonnade facing Berlin’s Lustgarten (Photo: Unsplash/feinschliff)
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Above The coffered ceiling of the museum’s colonnade, restored after wartime damage (Photo: Unsplash/Alexandre Barbosa)
Above One of the bronze horse-tamer groups flanking the entrance was added after the museum’s initial completion (Photo: Unsplash/ Shannia Christanty)
The coffered ceiling of the museum’s colonnade, restored after wartime damage (Photo: Unsplash/Alexandre Barbosa)
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Karl Friedrich Schinkel finished the museum in 1830, and its long Ionic colonnade fronting a plain, symmetrical block became a template repeated across European civic architecture for decades afterwards. Schinkel was among the most influential figures of the Greek Revival, and the building carries columns with little additional ornament. It was heavily damaged in the Second World War and later rebuilt. Today it holds Berlin’s collection of classical antiquities.
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Parthenon replica, Nashville
Above Nashville’s Parthenon replica, its pediment sculpture and painted metopes reconstructed to match the Athenian original in full colour (Photo: Unsplash/Joshua Woods)
Nashville’s Parthenon replica, its pediment sculpture and painted metopes reconstructed to match the Athenian original in full colour (Photo: Unsplash/Joshua Woods)
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Built for Tennessee’s 1897 Centennial Exposition and later reconstructed in permanent materials, Nashville’s Parthenon is a full-scale, dimensionally accurate copy of the Athenian original, including a 42-foot replica of the lost statue of Athena inside. Nashville had branded itself the “Athens of the South” in the run-up to the exposition, and the building was the centrepiece of that claim. It now operates as an art museum and is among the city’s most visited sites.
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Walhalla, Regensburg
Above The Walhalla’s Doric temple form, modelled on the Parthenon and set atop a monumental staircase above the Danube (Photo: Alexandra Zelena)
Above The memorial’s hilltop position was chosen deliberately, commanding views across the Bavarian countryside below (Photo: Mohamed B)
The Walhalla’s Doric temple form, modelled on the Parthenon and set atop a monumental staircase above the Danube (Photo: Alexandra Zelena)
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King Ludwig I of Bavaria commissioned the Walhalla as a hall of busts honouring notable figures from German-speaking history, and architect Leo von Klenze modelled it closely on the Parthenon, setting it above the Danube at the top of a long monumental staircase. It was completed in 1842. Unlike most buildings on this list, it was never intended for worship, government or public assembly, only for commemoration, and it still adds new busts to its collection, most recently in the 21st century.
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Fullerton Hotel, Singapore
The Fullerton Hotel’s Doric colonnade was originally built to front Singapore’s General Post Office in 1928 (Photo: Unsplash/Edwin Petrus)
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Major P.H. Keys designed the building as Singapore’s General Post Office, completed in 1928 with a heavy granite facade and Doric colonnade facing the mouth of the Singapore River. It later housed the Chamber of Commerce and various civic offices before being converted into a hotel in 2001. The colonnade that once fronted a government mail room now fronts a hotel lobby.
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St. George’s Church, Penang
Above St. George’s Church alongside its freestanding memorial pavilion, built to honour Penang’s founder, Francis Light (Photo: iStock)
St. George’s Church alongside its freestanding memorial pavilion, built to honour Penang’s founder, Francis Light (Photo: iStock)
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Built in 1818 under the East India Company for Penang’s growing British community, St. George’s is among the oldest Anglican churches in Southeast Asia. Its portico of Doric and Corinthian columns fronts a plain, symmetrical hall, a more conventionally neoclassical treatment than many of its colonial-era neighbours in George Town. It sits within the city’s UNESCO-listed core and continues to hold regular services, nearly two centuries after it was consecrated.
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Jennifer Choo is Regional Managing Editor of Tatler Homes, covering architecture, interior design, and art across Asia. Based in Malaysia, she oversees regional content on luxury residential design and contemporary art collections. Legally trained but choosing to pursue her passion for design, she previously led notable design publications and worked as an interior stylist and art consultant for property developers, design firms, and private clients.
