Germany and France 's
Walhalla near
Regensburg,
Bavaria (1842) In Germany, Greek Revival architecture is predominantly found in two centres, Berlin and
Munich. In both locales, Doric was the court style rather than a popular movement and was heavily patronised by
Frederick William II of Prussia and
Ludwig I of Bavaria as the expression of their desires for their respective seats to become the capital of Germany. The earliest Greek building was the
Brandenburg Gate (1788–91) by
Carl Gotthard Langhans, who modelled it loosely on the
Propylaea in Athens. Ten years after the death of
Frederick the Great, the initiated a competition for a monument to the King that would promote "morality and patriotism."
Friedrich Gilly's unexecuted design for a temple raised above the
Leipziger Platz caught the tenor of high idealism that the Germans sought in Greek architecture and was enormously influential on
Karl Friedrich Schinkel and
Leo von Klenze. Schinkel was in a position to stamp his mark on Berlin after the catastrophe of the French occupation ended in 1813; his work on what is now the
Altes Museum,
Konzerthaus Berlin, and the
Neue Wache transformed that city. Similarly, in Munich von Klenze's
Glyptothek and
Walhalla memorial were the fulfilment of Gilly's vision of an orderly and moral German world. The purity and seriousness of the style was intended as an assertion of
German national values and partly intended as a deliberate riposte to France, where it never really caught on. By comparison, Greek Revival architecture in France was never popular with either the state or the public. What little there is started with
Charles de Wailly's crypt in
Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles de Paris (1773–80), and
Claude Nicolas Ledoux's Barriere des Bonshommes (1785–89). First-hand evidence of Greek architecture was of very little importance to the French, due to the influence of
Marc-Antoine Laugier's doctrines that sought to discern the principles of the Greeks instead of their mere practices. It would take until
Henri Labrouste's
Neo-Grec of the
Second Empire for Greek Revival architecture to flower briefly in France.
Great Britain in
London Following the travels to Greece,
Nicholas Revett, a Suffolk architect, and the better remembered
James "Athenian" Stuart in the early 1750s, intellectual curiosity quickly led to a desire among the elite to emulate the style. Stuart was commissioned after his return from Greece by
George Lyttelton to produce the first Greek building in England, the garden temple at
Hagley Hall (1758–59). A number of British architects in the second half of the century took up the expressive challenge of the Doric from their aristocratic patrons, including
Benjamin Henry Latrobe (notably at
Hammerwood Park and
Ashdown House) and Sir
John Soane, but it remained the private enthusiasm of connoisseurs up to the first decade of the 19th century. An early example of Greek Doric architecture married with a more
Palladian interior, is the façade of the Revett-designed rural church of
Ayot St Lawrence in Hertfordshire, commissioned in 1775 by
Sir Lyonel Lyde, 1st Baronet of the eponymous manor. The Doric columns of this church, with their "pie-crust crimped" details, are taken from drawings that Revett made of the
Temple of Apollo on the Cycladic island of
Delos, in the collection of books that he (and Stuart in some cases) produced, largely funded by special subscription by the
Society of Dilettanti. See more in
Terry Friedman's book
The Georgian Parish Church, Spire Books, 2004. Seen in its wider social context, Greek Revival architecture sounded a new note of sobriety and restraint in public buildings in Britain around 1800 as an assertion of
nationalism attendant on the
Act of Union, the
Napoleonic Wars, and the clamour for political reform.
William Wilkins's winning design for the public competition for
Downing College, Cambridge announced the Greek style was to become a dominant idiom in architecture, especially for public buildings of this sort. Wilkins and
Robert Smirke went on to build some of the most important buildings of the era, including the
Theatre Royal,
Covent Garden (1808–1809), the
General Post Office (1824–1829) and the
British Museum (1823–1848), the Wilkins Building of
University College London (1826–1830), and the
National Gallery (1832–1838). One of the greatest British proponents of the style was
Decimus Burton. In
London, twenty three Greek Revival
Commissioners' churches were built between 1817 and 1829, the most notable being
St.Pancras church by
William and
Henry William Inwood. In Scotland the style was avidly adopted by
William Henry Playfair,
Thomas Hamilton and
Charles Robert Cockerell, who severally and jointly contributed to the massive expansion of
Edinburgh's
New Town, including the
Calton Hill development and the
Moray Estate. Such was the popularity of the Doric in Edinburgh that the city now enjoys a striking visual uniformity, and as such is sometimes whimsically referred to as "the Athens of the North". Within
Regency architecture the style already competed with
Gothic Revival and the continuation of the less stringent Palladian and Neoclassical styles of
Georgian architecture, the other two remaining more common for houses, both in towns and
English country houses. If it is tempting to see the Greek Revival as the expression of Regency authoritarianism, then the changing conditions of life in Britain made Doric the loser of the
Battle of the Styles, dramatically symbolized by the selection of
Charles Barry's Gothic design for the
Palace of Westminster in 1836. Nevertheless, Greek continued to be in favour in Scotland well into the 1870s in the singular figure of
Alexander Thomson, known as Greek Thomson.
Greece , one of
Theophil Hansen's trilogy of Greek Revival structures in central
Athens Following the
Greek War of Independence,
Romantic Nationalist ideology encouraged the use of historically Greek architectural styles in place of
Ottoman or pan-European ones. Classical architecture was used for secular public buildings, while
Byzantine architecture was preferred for churches. Examples of Greek Revival architecture in Greece include the
Old Royal Palace (now the home of the
Parliament of Greece), the
Academy and
University of Athens, the
Zappeion, and the
National Library of Greece. The most prominent architects in this style were northern Europeans such as
Christian and
Theophil Hansen and
Ernst Ziller and German-trained Greeks such as
Stamatios Kleanthis and
Panagis Kalkos. The city of
Nafplio in the Peloponnese is also an important example of Neoclassical architecture along with the island towns of
Poros, Syros (in the capital
Ermoupoli) and
Symi. Despite the prestige of
ancient Greece among Europe's educated elite, most people had minimal direct knowledge of the ancient Greek civilization before the middle of the 18th century. The monuments of Greek antiquity were known chiefly from
Pausanias and other literary sources. Visiting
Ottoman Greece was difficult and dangerous business prior to the period of stagnation beginning with the
Great Turkish War. Few tourists visited
Athens during the first half of the 18th century, and none made any significant study of the architectural ruins. It was not until the expedition to Greece funded by the
Society of Dilettanti of 1751 by
James "Athenian" Stuart and
Nicholas Revett that serious archaeological inquiry began in earnest. Stuart and Revett's findings, published in 1762 (first volume) as
The Antiquities of Athens, along with Julien-David Le Roy's '''' (1758) were the first accurate surveys of ancient Greek architecture. The rediscovery of the three relatively easily accessible Greek temples at
Paestum in
Southern Italy created huge interest throughout Europe, and prints by
Giovanni Battista Piranesi and others were widely circulated. The
Napoleonic Wars denied access to France and Italy to traditional Grand Tourists, especially from Britain. Aided by close diplomatic relations between Britain and the
Porte, British travellers, artists and architects went to Greece and Turkey in ever larger numbers to study ancient Greek monuments and excavate or collect antiquities. The Greek War of Independence ended in 1832;
Lord Byron's participation and death during this had brought it additional prominence.
Russia , part of the
Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns in
Saint Petersburg, Russia The style was attractive in
Russia because they shared the
Eastern Orthodox faith with the Greeks. The historic centre of
Saint Petersburg was rebuilt by
Alexander I of Russia, with many buildings giving the Greek Revival a Russian debut. The
Saint Petersburg Bourse on
Vasilievsky Island has a temple front with 44 Doric columns.
Giacomo Quarenghi's design for the
Saint Petersburg Manege "mimics a
5th-century BC Athenian temple with a
portico of eight
Doric columns bearing a
pediment and bas reliefs".
Leo von Klenze's expansion of the palace that is now the
Hermitage Museum is another example of the style.
Turkey in
Istanbul, Turkey During the late period of the Ottoman Empire, Greek Revival architecture had its examples in the empire. The prominent examples are
Istanbul Archaeology Museums (1891)
Rest of Europe in
Vienna The style was generally popular in northern Europe, and not in the south (except for Greece itself), at least during the main period. Examples can be found in Poland, Lithuania, and Finland, where the assembly of Greek buildings in
Helsinki city centre is particularly notable. At the cultural edges of Europe, in the Swedish region of western Finland, Greek Revival motifs might be grafted on a purely
Baroque design, as in the design for
Oravais Church by Jacob Rijf, 1792. A Greek Doric order, rendered in the anomalous form of
pilasters, contrasts with the hipped roof and boldly scaled cupola and lantern, of wholly traditional Baroque inspiration. In Austria, one of the best examples of this style is the
Parliament Building designed by
Theophil Hansen. ==North America==