The development of the Greek columns was entirely dependent of the development of cult buildings. The transition from wooden post to stone columns was part of the larger development in early Greek monumental architecture, but the evolution of one single element did not stand alone, nor was it applied at the same time all over the Greek world. Technical development of roof tiles, stone walls and stone superstructure did change the design of colonnaded buildings. Not only did the buildings grow in dimensions, their layout was correspondingly altered. The interior wooden posts used in the apsidal buildings to carry the thatched roof, gradually moved out of the building becoming a prostyle or peripheral temple with stone columns carrying a tiled gable roof. A change in design that similarly altered the way people could move in and around the cult building. It is often discussed how the use of the sanctuary changed over time or how the technical development of architecture changed the layouts of the building. These questions have not commonly been combined, but the preferred choice of design was dependent on how the ancient people wanted to use their buildings.

It is clear that different parts of the buildings developed in different periods and different regions. Several local styles were used before all different parts were fully developed and added together in the standardized Doric and Ionic temple around 500 BCE. The ancient people did choose which new inventions that befitted their own purpose in their sanctuary, creating their own local style of design or layout. There were likewise several column styles. They are hard to trace in wooden architecture, but when constructed in stone it is clear that round, fluted and polygonal columns were used side by side, in both time and place. The choice of materials, construction techniques and the decorative parts of the buildings seem to be a regional choice, rather than a chronological. In some Classical temples we can identify a conservative religious layout, long after the new techniques have been invented. A use of columns in locations no longer needed for structural reasons or a column shape no longer commonly used. Columns shape, design and placement can therefore illuminate when the ancient people chose a specific design for aesthetical or functions reasons.