Ode to Greek Architecture

Satellite photo from NASA released August 26, 2007

I have been watching the news about the horrible fires in Greece lately, as I am sure many of you have. The site of the first Olympic Games was affected as have many other historical sites. So much of the world's architecture and design has been influenced by the architectural wonders of Greece. We take our world for granted all too easily, and it doesn't take much for it to disappear.

Here is a wonderful example of our fascination with Greek architecture and it's form and proportion. In honor of the country responsible for the birth of such great traditions:

The Parthenon recreated in wood by Bunny Williams at her home in Connecticut. Columns were fashioned out of rough-hewn oak tree trunks with carved ionic capitals. The tympanum within the triangular pediment hold pine cones.

A view to the pool. The limestone coping is from a stone cutter in the south of France.

A view of the temple as it sits on a rise just on the edge of the forest.

Casually elegant furnishings from William's and John Rosselli's garden furniture shopTreillage, NYC.

Fireplace carved by the same French artisan as the pool coping.

Bunny Williams used the same precise ratios of height, width, and depth in planning her pavilion as the ancient Greeks. With her wit and eye for design, Bunny has recreated a classical Greek temple as a garden pavilion in a way that captures the spirit of Greek myths.

House and Garden, July 2003 , photos by Gregory Cerio