In classical architecture, hypaethral describes a building with no roof and with columns forming a partial wall. The term originates from Latin hypaethrus, from Ancient Greek ὕπαιθρος hupaithros ὑπό hupo- "under" and αἰθήρ aither "sky, air". It was described by the Roman architect Vitruvius in his treatise De architectura, written for the emperor Caesar Augustus probably about 15 BC.
Overview Hypaethral is in contradistinction to cleithral, a term applied to a covered temple. The hypaethros or hypaethral opening is the term Vitruvius (iii. 2) used for the opening in the middle of the roof of temples, an example being found in Athens in the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which is octastyle. There was no example in Rome. However, at the time Vitruvius wrote (c. 25 AD) the cella of this temple was unroofed, because the columns which had been provided to carry, at all events, part of the ceiling and roof had been taken away by Sulla in 80 BC. The decastyle temple of Apollo Didymaeus near Miletus was, according to Strabo (c. 50 BC), unroofed, on account of the vastness of its cella, in which precious groves of laurel bushes were planted.
Apart from these two examples, the references in various writers to an opening of some kind in the roofs of temples dedicated to particular deities, and the statement of Vitruvius, which was doubtless based on the writings of Greek authors, that in decastyle or large temples the centre was open to the sky and without a roof (medium autem sub diva est sine tecto), render the existence of the hypaethros probable in some cases; and therefore C. R. Cockerell's discovery in the temple at Aegina of two fragments of a coping-stone, in which there were sinkings on one side to receive the tiles and covering tiles, has been of great importance in the discussion of this subject. In the conjectural restoration of the opaion or opening in the roof shown in Cockerell's drawing, it has been made needlessly large, having an area of about one quarter of the superficial area of the cella between the columns, and since in the Pantheon at Rome the relative proportions of the central opening in the dome and the area of the rotunda are 1:22, and the light there is ample, in the clearer atmosphere of Greece it might have been less. The larger the opening, the more conspicuous would be the notch in the roof which is so greatly objected to; in this respect, Jacques Hittorf would seem to be nearer the truth when, in his conjectural restoration of Temple R at Selinus, he shows an opaion about half the relative size shown in Cockerell's of that at Aegina, the coping on the side elevation being much less noticeable.
The problem was apparently solved in another way at Bassae, where, in the excavations of the temple of Apollo by Cockerell and Baron Hailer von Hallerstein, three marble tiles were found with pierced openings in them about 18 inches by 10 in.; five of these pierced tiles on either side would have amply lighted the interior of the cella, and the amount of rain passing through (a serious element to be considered in a country where torrential rains occasionally fall) would not be very great or more than could be retained to dry up in the ceila sunk pavement. In favor of both these methods of lighting, the interior of the cella, the sarcophagus tomb at Cyrene, about 20 feet (6.1 m) long, carved in imitation of a temple, has been adduced, because, on the tor of the roof and in its centre, there is a raised coping, and a similar feature is found on a tomb found near Delos; an example from Crete now in the British Museum shows a pierced tile on each side of the roof, and a large number of pierced tiles have been found in Pompeii, some of them surrounded with a rim identical with that of the marble tiles at Bassae. On the other hand, there are many authorities, among them Wilhelm Dörpfeld, who have adhered to their original opinion that it was only through the open doorway that light was ever admitted into the celia, and with the clear atmosphere of Greece and the reflections from the marble pavement, such lighting would be quite sufficient. There remains still another source of light to be considered, that passing through the Parian marble tiles of the roof; the superior translucency of Parian to any other marble may have suggested its employment for the roofs of temples, and if, in the framed ceilings carried over the celia, openings were left, some light from the Parian tile roof might have been obtained. It is possibly to this that Plutarch refers when describing the ceiling and roof of the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, where the columns in the interior of the temple carried a ceiling, probably constructed of timbers crossing one another at right angles, and one or more of the spaces was left open, which Xenocles surmounted by a roof formed of tiles.
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