The Leonidaion was the lodging place for athletes taking part in the Olympic Games

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

 at Olympia

Olympia, Greece

Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad , the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC...

. It was located at the southwest edge of the sanctuary and was the largest building on the site. It was constructed around 330 BCE and was funded and designed by Leonidas of Naxos.

The building consisted of four Ionian

Ionic order

The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...

 colonnades with 138 decorated columns, forming a square of approximately 80 metres. In its interior there was a central Doric

Doric order

The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...

 peristyle

Peristyle

In Hellenistic Greek and Roman architecture a peristyle is a columned porch or open colonnade in a building surrounding a court that may contain an internal garden. Tetrastoon is another name for this feature...

with 44 columns.