Expert: John Henry Architect - 5/2/2008

Question
Hello
Have you read anywhere why people in ancient times built buildings with those big and tall columns in the front of the buildings and those really high stairways? I am GUESSING the high ceilings was to keep the heat down in the summer inside of the building. But I am not sure what the columns were for, other than looks. But what about the stairs? To day, govrnments and businesses build high stairs so when you finally reach the front door, you are exhausted!

Answer
Let's start with Egypt.
The columns were first probably shorter and made from wood.
Early prehistoric temples are thought to have been built from tree trunks.  The higher the temple the more magnificent.
Wood rots and so a permanent fix was stone.
Stone could be stacked higher even that trees in many cases.
Stone columns had three styles in ancient Greece: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian.  A patron could tell a builder that he wanted a temple based on one of these styles, the diameter of the column and how many columns wide.  That was all it took as the builder then knew the allowable spans between the columns, the height of the column related to the diameter, etc.
The steps to some temples, like that at Didyma in now present Turkey, were steep but went up only to the main floor of the temple floor where it was assumed to be holy ground.
Grand stairways did not come into being until the Renaissance when these temples from Greek and Roman origins were the models for palaces and public buildings.
In Washington DC, our architects built many monuments based on the Greek temple form.  They outdid the Greeks and Romans by building large expansive and tall stairways to the entry.
See Palladio's 'Villa Rotonda'for a private owner with the same ovesized stairways to the main floor.  Underneath though is a cellar.
Many grand churches have been built in this style as well.
But now due to handicap provisions in codes, these stairways are pretty much prohibited and obsolete.