You look up at the pediment and the pediment is the triangle that crowns the facade. The pediment is the triangular gable formed by the sloping roof above the entablature and the triangular gable means the pediment is the geometry of shelter made visible. A pitched roof sheds rain. The pitch creates a triangle at the end of the building. The triangle is the pediment. The Greeks took this practical shape and filled it with sculpture and the filling it with sculpture turned a structural necessity into the most important visual statement a building could make. What you put in the pediment is what you believe.

The pediment of the Parthenon held sculptures that told the birth of Athena and the birth of Athena was removed by Lord Elgin beginning in eighteen oh one. The east pediment showed Athena springing fully formed from the head of Zeus and the springing fully formed was witnessed by the other gods who reclined and sat and turned toward the miracle at the center. The west pediment showed the contest between Athena and Poseidon for the patronage of Athens and the contest was the foundational myth of the city. The pediment sculptures were carved by Phidias and his workshop around four thirty eight BC and the carving around four thirty eight BC means the sculptures existed for twenty two centuries before Elgin arrived with saws. Elgin's men cut the figures from the pediment and shipped them to London where they sit in the British Museum today. The Parthenon's pediment is empty now. The triangle remains. The story inside the triangle is in another country. Greece has asked for the sculptures back. Britain has refused. The pediment waits.

The pediment of the New York Stock Exchange on Broad Street shows Integrity Protecting the Works of Man and the protecting was carved by John Quincy Adams Ward and completed in nineteen oh four. The pediment is eleven figures in Georgia marble and the eleven figures represent agriculture and mining and science and industry gathered around a central figure of Integrity. The Stock Exchange was built while J. P. Morgan was the most powerful banker in America and the most powerful banker in America was building his empire six blocks away at the corner of Wall and Broad. The pediment tells you what the building believes or what the building wants you to believe. Integrity protects. The works of man are gathered beneath Integrity's wings. The pediment was carved three years before the Panic of nineteen oh seven and twenty five years before the Crash of nineteen twenty nine. The marble figures did not flinch during either event. The pediment keeps saying Integrity regardless of what happens on the trading floor below.

Every Greek Revival courthouse in America wears a pediment to say this is law. The architects of the early Republic chose the Greek temple form because the Greek temple form said democracy and the saying democracy was the point. The Supreme Court of the United States completed in nineteen thirty five has a pediment carved by Robert Aitken showing Liberty Enthroned guarded by Order and Authority. The pediment of the courthouse tells the citizen what to expect inside. Justice. Order. The authority of law. The pediment is the face the building presents before you enter. The pediment prepares you. Thousands of county courthouses across America repeat the form. The columns rise. The pediment crowns the columns. The triangle says this building is serious. Walk into a building without a pediment and you are in a shop. Walk into a building with a pediment and you are in a temple. The Greeks knew this. The Americans borrowed it. The pediment still works.

You stand on the sidewalk and you tilt your head back. The pediment is there at the top of the building above the columns above the steps above the sidewalk. The pediment. The triangle. The birth of Athena at the Parthenon. The Integrity at the Stock Exchange. The Liberty at the Supreme Court. The geometry of shelter turned into the geometry of belief. What you put in the triangle is what you worship. The triangle holds it up. The pediment presents it to the sky.