They declared the restoration finished. I think it's almost done. Most of the cranes and scaffolding were gone last time I looked, but gotta check again.Originally Posted by IanG
In fact I should go there on Sunday or so, since the winter period with "free entrance on Sundays" is almost over (1st Nov till 31st March).
Last September (morning of the general strike) there were three problems. 1: People, 2: Tripods, 3: Restoration and scaffolding and tools and ropes.
Did they actually get that all finished?
What's this about all those tomes in the Parthenon? Don't they know that stacking enormous and heavy books all over the Parthenon will cause differential settling?
Oh, you mean time.
Emily "nevermind" Litella
If they have measured those tricks, and if they don't have drawings showing those were intended, then I suspect those tricks are just latter-day reconstructionists trying to justify what are probably just the effects of settlement. Maybe they have such drawings and so on, and if you know of them, please share. My architectural curiosity is piqued.
It would be quite common even today to crown the floor of an outdoor building so that it would drain. Several inches across the width of the Parthenon isn't much--most outdoor pavements are sloped more than that to prevent ponding.
Paul mentioned in your previous thread related to this topic the notion that western art long ago established a tradition of rendering verticals vertical and horizontals with perspective convergence. From my more limited study of art history, there have been times and schools when perspective convergence was portrayed with wild inaccuracies throughout art history, but mostly because those schools comprised good artists, perhaps, but poor draftsmen. The drafting that I've seen from the Roman era, however, generally shows structures in elevation, with no perspective convergence at all (the assumption is that the viewpoint is at infinity so that the convergence lines are parallel--this allows designers and constructors to measure things directly from the drawings).
Were it me in a place like this, the only large-format I think would be possible would be something like Nana's 4x5 point-n-shoot with the 47mm SAXL. That would let you get close, and exaggerate the vertical convergence. Or, you could hold the camera level and crop away the undesirable foreground bits that would come with the leveling (making it a medium-format shift camera). But probably a trip like this would justify the large expenditure on updating my 5D to a 5DII and adding the stunning new Canon 24mm TSE lens. But I think I'd still go with the former. I walked around some old churches in England a couple of years ago, and used a 12mm lens on my 5D to correct vertical convergence by providing enough field of view to allow plumbing the camera. It limits the print size, but that wasn't one of my requirements. A lot of print-size capability could be restored using the 47 XL on 4x5, and the package should be small enough to avoid the problems mentioned by others.
Rick "thinking the 47XL is cheap compared to the Canon 17 and 24mm TSE lenses and the camera to take advantage of them" Denney
For those interested, Nova did a show called "Secrets of the Parthanon," which explains the structure. Restoration has been a PITA because each column is designed differently, meaning that the structure is a giant jigsaw puzzle with little to no interchangeable pieces.
Peter Y.
Number 1 you will always have, no matter when you go. Cold, sunny winter mornings might be the best bet. Number 2, yeah, discussed before.
Well, they will never be finished. It's kind of like those bridges that they paint over and over. They "fix" the marble, the car exhausts kill it again, wash, rinse, repeat. The large part of work that they did the last few years to get the damage and confusion done by old "repairs" from the bavarians and others back in order is said to be done. I'll go have a look.
(Oh, and which general strike was that? We used to have one every few weeks lately, though it's calmed down a bit last week. - just kidding, I don't need to know)
Last edited by Sascha Welter; 10-Mar-2011 at 08:41. Reason: added the "just kidding"
Sascha,
You're not the only one with a Parthenon, just the Parthenon.
http://www.nashville.gov/parthenon/
Chris
I'm a newb to architecture stuff so if this sounds really stupid and uninformed it's because it is....
In light of the supposed crazy designs with the individual columns each going their own way and such if you were to want to photograph a 3/4 view you could use the place of the front of the structure as a reference point and shift and swing to make that parallel to the film plane and then give any tilt necessary to avoid any key-stoning and then the columns would be seen on the photograph as they are.
Make sense?
Here is the relevant paragraph from wiki. Whatever, its a lovely building, and I must see it someday.
Although the nearby Temple of Hephaestus is the most complete surviving example of a Doric order temple, the Parthenon, in its day, was regarded as the finest. The temple, wrote John Julius Cooper, "Enjoys the reputation of being the most perfect Doric temple ever built. Even in antiquity, its architectural refinements were legendary, especially the subtle correspondence between the curvature of the stylobate, the taper of the naos walls and the entasis of the columns."[17] Entasis refers to the slight bulge of the columns as they rise, though the observable effect on the Parthenon is considerably more subtle than on earlier temples with their noticeably cigar-shaped columns. The stylobate is the platform on which the columns stand. As in many other classical Greek temples,[18] it has a slight parabolic upward curvature intended primarily to shed rainwater. The columns might therefore be supposed to lean outwards, but they actually lean slightly inwards so that if they carried on, they would meet exactly a mile above the centre of the Parthenon; since they are all the same height, the curvature of the outer stylobate edge is transmitted to the architrave and roof above: "All follow the rule of being built to delicate curves," Gorham Stevens observed when pointing out that, in addition, the west front was built at a slightly higher level than that of the east front.[19] It is not universally agreed what the intended effect of these "optical refinements" was; it may serve as a sort of "reverse optical illusion".[20] As the Greeks may have been aware, two parallel lines appear to bow, or curve outward, when intersected by converging lines. In this case, the ceiling and floor of the temple may seem to bow in the presence of the surrounding angles of the building. Striving for perfection, the designers may have added these curves, compensating for the illusion by creating their own curves, thus negating this effect and allowing the temple to be seen as they intended. It is also suggested that it was to enliven what might have appeared an inert mass in the case of a building without curves, but the comparison ought to be with the Parthenon's more obviously curved predecessors than with a notional rectilinear temple.
The Greeks were great janitors! Not just sublime philosophers & brilliant mathematicians. Really, it’s enough to make one think our finest historians see too much in the rise in the middle of the Parthenon’s floor. It might just be a sanitary matter.
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