Plato’s Timaeus
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Plato’s Academy, Mosaic from Pompeii (Villa of T. Siminius Stephanus), Second style. Early first century
BCE.
Philosophical thought is one of the Greeks’ biggest gifts to the world. Plato, the great philosopher, mathematician, and student of Socrates, lived from roughly 424 to 348 BCE. His ideas had enormous impact on how the landscapes and buildings during his time were organized. In one of his most famous dialogues, The Timaeus, Plato describes the physical manifestation of material things in the landscape:
Plato
“For material things to exist within the platonic cosmos, there must be regions of occupancy—chora—within the Receptacle, the fertile primary ground for world being, in which particular places—topoi—are located. The Demiurge’s task (creator of the universe) is the fitting of forms, which are based upon abstract, geometrically determined, ideal forms, into topos—in other words, the location of pattern-based matter in place within regional space, or chora.”
In Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers explains Plato’s view of the cosmos in a more easily digestible form:
https://online.academyart.edu/content/enforced/59611-110770-01-2430-1-OL2/lan_177_m02_03_image1.1280.jpeg?ou=59611
“Plato’s cosmology has physical counterpart in the ordering of urban landscape space. This is evident from the earliest development of the Greek city-state beginning in the eighth century BCE when the center and the outlying environs were conceived as the complementary components of chora, or regional space.”
Greek Relationship to the Land
Previously, we’ve talked about two different types of relationships with the land: I-it and I-thou. Based on the two descriptions quoted above, what kind of a relationship did the Greeks of Plato’s time have to the land? It seems apparent that the Greeks had an I-thou relationship. They were, after all, extremely cognizant of the placement of physical elements in the landscape. However, as they began to shape and harness the land, they were also engaged in an I-it relationship to some degree.
It is not until we see built examples of Greek polis and its sub-urban counter parts that we can fully understand the meaning behind Plato’s dialogue. However, before we delve into specific sites, let’s first explore the cultural needs and principles of the time leading up to the creation of sites like Delphi, the Acropolis, and the Agora.
https://online.academyart.edu/d2l/le/content/59611/navigateContent/2250/Next?pId=2376873
https://online.academyart.edu/d2l/le/content/59611/navigateContent/2250/Next?pId=2376873
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