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With a height that is only four to eight times its diameter, the columns are the most squat of all orders. The shaft of the Doric order is channeled with 20 flutes. The capital consists of a necking or annulet, which is a simple ring. The echinus is convex, or circular cushion like stone, and the abacus is a square slab of stone.
In architecture, intercolumniation is the proportional spacing between columns in a colonnade, often expressed as a multiple of the column diameter as measured at the bottom of the shaft. [1] In Classical , Renaissance , and Baroque architecture , intercolumniation was determined by a system described by the first-century BC Roman architect ...
In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base. With a height only four to eight times their diameter, the columns were the most squat of all the classical orders; their vertical shafts were fluted with 20 parallel concave grooves, each rising to a sharp edge called an arris.
The columns of an early Doric temple such as the Temple of Apollo at Syracuse, Sicily, may have a height to base diameter ratio of only 4:1 and a column height to entablature ratio of 2:1, with relatively crude details. A column height to diameter of 6:1 became more usual, while the column height to entablature ratio at the Parthenon is about 3:1.
This standardization kept the fluting in a familiar proportion to the diameter of the column at any scale, even when the height of the column was exaggerated. Unlike Greek Doric fluting, which runs out to an arris or sharp edge, that was easily damaged by people brushing it as they passed by, Ionic fluting leaves a little flat-seeming surface ...
Proportion is a defining characteristic of the Corinthian order: the "coherent integration of dimensions and ratios in accordance with the principles of symmetria" are noted by Mark Wilson Jones, who finds that the ratio of total column height to column-shaft height is in a 6:5 ratio, so that, secondarily, the full height of column with capital ...
The classic solution chosen by Greek architects is the formula "frontal columns : side columns = n : (2n+1)", which can also be used for the number of intercolumniations. As a result, numerous temples of the Classical period in Greece ( c. 500 to 336) had 6 × 13 columns or 5 × 11 intercolumniations.
A number of surviving temple-like structures are circular, and are referred to as tholos (Ancient Greek: "dome"). [1] The smallest temples are less than 25 m (82 ft) in length, or in the case of the circular tholos, in diameter. The great majority of temples are between 30 and 60 m (100 and 200 ft) in length.