Propylaea Of The Acropolis Research Paper

The Propylaea of the Acropolis in Athens: The Project of Mnesicles
In roughly 437 B.C., 10 years after the beginning of the construction of the Acropolis and immediately after the Parthenon had been completed, Athens had began construction of a new site for their extremely revered sacred space known as the Acropolis, which was already home to great architectural blunders such as the Parthenon and Erechtheion. The entrance to this very commemorative site is referred to as the Propylaea, which is considered to be the grandest gateway ever created in Greece even though its originally intended design plan was never fully finished. It was initiated to replace the old and rather diminutive Mycenaean propylon already on the west side. Led by the
Primarily, the Propylaea is meant to be the area of transition between everyday secular life to the sacred space containing Athens’ most ancient and holy shrines such as the Parthenon and Temple of Nike Athena. Along with being a religious site where ceremonial traditions such as religious sacrifices took place, the Propylaea was also used as a museum. This gateway was used for protection as well even though that purpose was less significant in the overall design. This versatility was developed as a result of the gateway’s ability to adapt to various grades since the overall design of the column-filled entrance way infuses multiple characteristics of different building types that would not normally be seen in a regular structure during that time in Greek architecture. Another important aspect of the Propylaea is its asymmetrical nature. The fact that Mnesicles deliberately chose to build this site in such an unconventional way shows its true architectural significance since the builders revered the new Propylaea as an indirect way of commemorating both the Athens victory over Persia, and highlighting the symmetrically perfect nature of the existent Parthenon. Since the Propylaea’s central hall leads a direct path to the Acropolis, Mnesicles wanted to it to follow a similar form of typology with regards to design. In relation to its surrounding structures, the
It truly is a shame that the Propylaea remained unfinished during its original time though because one could only imagine how grand and magnificent it could have potentially been if fully completed. The fact that the actual final design cannot be explained with full confidence shows that this project was definitely no easy task to accomplish. However, there have been attempts to restore what has been lost due to not only 2,000 years of erosion, but also due to incompetent efforts by past people to revive the physicality of this ancient site. A large problem with restoration though results from the fact that the original unit of measurement as used by the architect remains undetermined (Waele, 3). This makes it hard to predict what the sizes of certain elements will be because there is no definite method of converting the measurements to an already existing scale of units. Nonetheless, the Propylaea has sustained throughout time as an iconic representation of the fusing of two Greek architecture orders most commonly used in the acropolis site to usher in a new era of Athenian prosperity and