By far the most impressive examples of Greek architecture of the high Classical period were the buildings constructed under Pericles for the Athenian Acropolis. The Acropolis architecture, which is in several ways a clear display of civic pride, also exhibits considerable subtlety of design in its use of the Doric and Ionic orders. The ensemble of the major buildings—the Parthenon, a temple to Athena; the Erechtheum, a temple housing several cults; and the monumental gateway to the Acropolis, the Propylaea—shows the orders used in deliberate contrast: the Erechtheum provides a decorative Ionic counterpart to the severe Doric of the Parthenon, which itself has an Ionic frieze; and in the Propylaea, columns of both orders complement each other.

The Parthenon, designed by the architect Ictinus, is a broader, more stately building than most Doric temples, with an eight-column facade instead of the usual six. With the four-square Doric style there had always been the possibility of giving an impression of dull immobility, a danger that was partially avoided in the Archaic period through the use of bulging columns and capitals. In the Classical period—and best observed in the Parthenon—a subtle deviation from strict linearity accomplishes the same correction. The Parthenon was the display place for a great statue of Athena by the sculptor Phidias, a statue that honoured the city goddess. Such obvious implications of civic pride are enhanced by the unparalleled portrayal of a contemporary event on the frieze of the building: the procession of citizens in the yearly festival in honour of Athena.

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The Erechtheum was a more complicated building than the Parthenon; built on an awkward site, it also had to serve different cults, which meant that its architect had to design a building with three porches and three different floor levels. Its caryatid porch, with figures of women for columns, makes use of an old Asian motif that had appeared earlier, in Archaic treasuries at Delphi. The Propylaea was designed by Mnesicles, who had to adapt the rigid conventions of colonnade construction to a steeply rising site. In the precision and finish of their execution, which complements the brilliant innovation of their design, these three buildings had no rival in the Greek world.

By this time, use of the orders was no longer confined to temple buildings. The marketplace at Athens was adorned with various public buildings in which the orders were applied to structures of different plans: the colonnade stoa, or portico, a council house, and even a circular clubhouse for state officials. The stage buildings of theatres began to receive monumental treatment as well, although the action still took place on the flat circular orchestra and the seats were for the most part still wooden (or were missing—the audience sitting upon the bare hillside that was usually chosen for theatre sites) rather than stone. Several new Doric temples were also built in the lower city of Athens and in the Attic countryside. The Ionic order was used only for the smaller temples, as for the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis; but even though the Ionic was never to be used as the exterior order for major buildings on the Greek mainland, Athens did contribute new forms of column base to the order.

At Bassae in remote Arcadia in the mountains of the Peloponnese, a Doric temple was built for Apollo incorporating unusual variants on the Ionic column in the interior and a new type of capital, which had two rows of acanthus leaves curling below the volutes—the first recorded Corinthian capital. This type was reputedly invented by the sculptor-architect Callimachus to provide an alternative for the Ionic order that could be viewed from any side and so placed at corners or in interiors. It was difficult to carve, however, and was slow to win favour in Greece.

Late Classical (c. 400–323 bce)

With growth now concentrated in outlying areas, there was understandably less temple building in mainland Greece in this period than there had been in the 5th century, but the Doric temples at Tegea and Nemea in the Peloponnese were important, the former for admitting Corinthian capitals to columns engaged on its interior walls. In eastern Greece, on the other hand, there began a series of new temple constructions rivaling those of the Archaic period that consciously copied the Archaic in their plan and elaboration of detail. Some are simply replacements, such as that at Ephesus replacing an earlier temple destroyed by fire, or the rather later one at Didyma. Similarly, the town of Priene in Ionia, although built on a new foundation after the mid-4th century, was laid out as a grid of streets on a principle developed by the 5th-century architect Hippodamus, who had applied the same scheme to his home city, Miletus, and to the port of Athens, Piraeus. The new Athena Temple at Priene is the best example of classic Ionic known, with no eccentricity of plan or detail. The eastern Greeks had long worked for their neighbours in the Persian towns of Lycia and Caria, supplying monumental tombs of native pattern decorated with sculpture in Greek style. At Xanthus, the capital of Lycia, a tomb resembling a Greek temple raised high on a platform had been built by the end of the 5th century; similar structures were made there in the 4th century, culminating in the great tomb built in mid-century at Halicarnassus for King Mausolus of Caria, a king who has given his name to all such monumental mausoleums. The fine architectural detail and the sculpture executed by Greek artists of the first rank show a total Hellenization of local taste and exemplify the high quality that Greek art in foreign lands had attained at this time.

The 4th century saw much greater diversity of architectural forms than ever before. Theatres received marble seats and elaborate stage buildings. Circular temples (tholoi) appeared in mainland Greek sanctuaries that were Doric in style but with the new Corinthian columns within. A small-scale tholos with Corinthian columns was also used for the choragic monument of Lysicrates in Athens. The two-storied stoa became an essential element in the planning of marketplaces or administrative areas. Architects were at pains to adapt the rigid orders to architectural forms and needs more complicated than those of the basic Greek temple plan.