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Development of Greek architecture?

Discuss the development of Greek architecture and sculpture through its three primary periods: Archaic, Classic, and Hellenistic.

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1. It's going to take a whole day to write an answer, so have a look at those that I've picked up from some sources. Architecture (building executed to an aesthetically considered design) was extinct in Greece from the end of the Mycenaean period (about 1200 BC) until the 7th century, when urban life and prosperity recovered to a point where public building could be undertaken. But since most Greek buildings in the Archaic and Early Classical periods were made of wood or mud-brick, nothing remains of them except a few ground-plans, and there are almost no written sources on early architecture or descriptions of buildings. Most of our knowledge of Greek architecture comes from the few surviving buildings of the Classical, Hellenistic and Roman periods (since Roman architecture heavily copied Greek), and from late written sources such as Vitruvius (1st century AD). This means that there is a strong bias towards temples, the only buildings which survive in any number. The standard format of Greek public buildings is well known from surviving examples such as the Parthenon, and even more so from Roman buildings built partly on the Greek model, such as the Pantheon in Rome. The building was usually either a cube or a rectangle made from limestone, of which Greece has an abundance, and which was cut into large blocks and dressed. Marble was an expensive building material in Greece: high quality marble came only from Mt Pentelus in Attica and from a few islands such as Paros, and its transportation in large blocks was difficult. It was used mainly for sculptural decoration, not structurally, except in the very grandest buildings of the Classical period such as the Parthenon. There were two main styles (or "orders") of Greek architecture, the Doric and the Ionic. These names were used by the Greeks themselves, and reflected their belief that the styles descended from the Dorian and Ionian Greeks of the Dark Ages, but this is unlikely to be true. The Doric style was used in mainland Greece and spread from there to the Greek colonies in Italy. The Doric style was more formal and austere, the Ionic more relaxed and decorative. The more ornate Corinthian style was a later development of the Ionic. These styles are best known through the three orders of column capitals, but there are differences in most points of design and decoration between the orders. Most of the best known surviving Greek buildings, such as the Parthenon and the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, are Doric. The Erechtheum, next to the Parthenon, however, is Ionic. The Ionic order became dominant in the Hellenistic period, since its more decorative style suited the aesthetic of the period better than the more restrained Doric. Some of the best surviving Hellenistic buildings, such as the Library of Celsus, can be seen in Turkey, at cities such as Ephesus and Pergamum. But in the greatest of Hellenistic cities, Alexandria in Egypt, almost nothing survives. Until the age of Alexander the Great, the Greeks erected permanent stone buildings almost exclusively for religious monuments, like the Egyptians, Sumerians, and Hindus. Their temples were not large enclosures of space but statue chambers containing a god's sacred image. These chambers were accessible only to priests. Yet the Greek temple has always been seen as fundamentally distinct from and superior to most other early religious types, partly because of the simplicity of its form, partly because of the exquisite refinement of the best examples, and partly because it is seen to reflect the emergence in Greece of a rational, philosophical approach to art that replaced earlier belief systems. Three Styles of Greek Temples Ionic, evolved in Ionia on the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea.The Ionic style is thinner and more elegant. Its capital is decorated with a scroll-like design (a volute). The Ionic order originated in the mid-6th century BC in Ionia, the southwestern coastland and islands of Asia Minor settled by Ionian Greeks, where an Ionian dialect was spoken. The Ionic order was being practised in mainland Greece in the 5th century BC. Unlike the Greek Doric order, Ionic columns normally stand on a base which separates the shaft of the column from the stylobate or platform. The capital of the Ionic column has characteristic paired scrolling volutes that are laid on the molded cap ("echinus") of the column, or spring from within it. The cap is usually enriched with egg-and-dart. Originally the volutes lay in a single plane (illustration at right); then it was seen that they could be angled out on the corners. DORIC The Greek Doric order was the earliest of these, known from the 7th century BC and reaching its mature form in the 5th century BC.In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base; their vertical shafts were fluted with parallel concave grooves; and they were topped b THE REST OF MY ANSWER WAS CUT OFF! LOOK AT THE LINKS I'VE GAVE YOU BELLOW.