Eternal Forms: Greek Architecture Then and Now

When the Greeks looked to the human body for proportions, 
they did not have in mind any particular individual's body.  
Rather they tried to find an ideal, or an average.  They were not 
trying to find the average height of all men either, but rather a
ratio that described men of all heights.  For example,
the Greeks believed that the average man's height was six
times whatever the length of his foot was (expressed as the 
ratio 6:1).  That is, if you take the length of a man's foot 
and multiply it by 6, the number would be the man's 
ideal height.  (This where we get the idea that an average 
man is six feet tall.)  So a man's body, like Pythagoras' 
triangle, was represented by a mathematical equation. 

If nature gave humans these proportions,
then the columns for holding up a
building should be made at these same
ratios.  Nature's proportions for
balancing a human upright (height equals
six times the length of the base) must
be used for upright structures. Early Greek
architecture actually used human figures as columns.

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