Ancient Greek Architecture

The earliest buildings that were built in Greece, in the New Stone Age, are small houses or huts, and wooden walls around them for protection. Later there are bigger houses, and stone walls around the villages.

By the Early Bronze Age, we find one bigger house in the middle of the village, and fancier, bigger stone walls.

In the Late Bronze Age, under the influence of Western Asia, and the Minoans on Crete, there are palaces and big stone tombs, as well as paved roads and bridges, and dams (and more stone walls).

During the Greek Dark Ages the palaces were burned, and the roads and bridges and dams mostly fell apart. But at the end of the Dark Ages, with the beginning of the Iron Age and the Archaic period in Greece, we see a new type of building: the temple for the gods. These earliest temples are built in the Doric style. There are houses, but no more palaces. But roads and bridges and stone walls begin to be built again.

More about Greek architecture