In simplicity, lies the greatest beauty. The best materials and lines that draw and even defeat the eye, showing perfection where perfection would seem – imperfect. The Parthenon rests on a plinth of three steps, and is some 30 by 69 meters at its top. A single row of columns surrounds it on all sides. This peristyle consists of eight Doric columns on the west and east sides and seventeen along the north and south sides. The great columns are made, each, of twelve fluted drum-columns, and with the capitals, are 33 feet high. To bear the weight of the roof, the columns taper from over 6 feet in diameter at the base, to less than 5 meet at the top. Each column bulges not quite half-way up its height. We Greeks knew the principle of the outward curvature of a column (entasis), which compensates for the optical effect that makes columns seem thinner in the middle when viewed from below. This distortion makes the columns look, from the worshippers, as if they were in perfect symmetry.



The corner columns are thicker, reducing the space between them and their neighbors: because they receive more sunlight, they would otherwise have appeared thinner than the rest. Finally, to give the impression of absolute perfection, the plinth gradually increases in height, by about 4 inches in the middle of the long sides and by about 3 inches at the center of the facades.



Thus appearances deceive, but the object is to create perfect order. I have not yet completed the frieze that surrounds the top, but when it is carved and painted, there will be nothing like it in the great world.