Classical order

An illustration of the Five Architectural Orders engraved

for the Encyclopédie, vol. 18, showing the Tuscan and
Doric orders (top row); two versions of the Ionic order
(center row); Corinthian and Composite orders (bottom
row)
row).

An[1] order in architecture is a certain

assemblage of parts subject to uniform
established proportions, regulated by the
office that each part has to perform.[2]
Coming down to the present from Ancient
Greek and Ancient Roman civilization, the
architectural orders are the styles of
classical architecture, each distinguished
by its proportions and characteristic
profiles and details, and most readily
recognizable by the type of column
employed. The three orders of architecture
—the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—
originated in Greece. To these the Romans
added, in practice if not in name, the
Tuscan, which they made simpler than
Doric, and the Composite, which was more
ornamental than the Corinthian. The
architectural order of a classical building
is akin to the mode or key of classical
music; the grammar or rhetoric of a written
composition. It is established by certain
modules like the intervals of music, and it
raises certain expectations in an audience
attuned to its language.[3]

Whereas the orders were essentially

structural in Ancient Greek architecture,
which made little use of the arch until its
late period, in Roman architecture where
the arch was often dominant, the orders
became increasingly decorative elements
except in porticos and similar uses.
Columns shrank into half-columns
emerging from walls or turned into
pilasters. This treatment continued after
the conscious and "correct" use of the
orders, initially following exclusively
Roman models, returned in the Italian
Renaissance.[4] Greek Revival architecture,
inspired by increasing knowledge of Greek
originals, returned to more authentic
models, including ones from relatively
early periods.

Elements
Table of architecture, Cyclopaedia, 1728

Each style has distinctive capitals at the

top of columns and horizontal
entablatures which it supports, while the
rest of the building does not in itself vary
between the orders. The column shaft and
base also varies with the order, and is
sometimes articulated with vertical hollow
grooves known as fluting. The shaft is
wider at the bottom than at the top,
because its entasis, beginning a third of
the way up, imperceptibly makes the
column slightly more slender at the top,
although some Doric columns, especially
early Greek ones, are visibly "flared", with
straight profiles that narrow going up the
shaft.

The capital rests on the shaft. It has a

load-bearing function, which concentrates
the weight of the entablature on the
supportive column, but it primarily serves
an aesthetic purpose. The necking is the
continuation of the shaft, but is visually
separated by one or many grooves. The
echinus lies atop the necking. It is a
circular block that bulges outwards
towards the top to support the abacus,
which is a square or shaped block that in
turn supports the entablature. The
entablature consists of three horizontal
layers, all of which are visually separated
from each other using moldings or bands.
In Roman and post-Renaissance work, the
entablature may be carried from column to
column in the form of an arch that springs
from the column that bears its weight,
retaining its divisions and sculptural
enrichment, if any. There are names for all
the many parts of the orders.
Measurement

Greek orders with full height

The height of columns are calculated in

terms of a ratio between the diameter of
the shaft at its base and the height of the
column. A Doric column can be described
as seven diameters high, an Ionic column
as eight diameters high and a Corinthian
column nine diameters high, although the
actual ratios used vary considerably in
both ancient and revived examples, but
keeping to the trend of increasing
slimness between the orders. Sometimes
this is phrased as "lower diameters high",
to establish which part of the shaft has
been measured.

Greek orders
There are three distinct orders in Ancient
Greek architecture: Doric, Ionic, and
Corinthian. These three were adopted by
the Romans, who modified their capitals.
The Roman adoption of the Greek orders
took place in the 1st century BC. The three
Ancient Greek orders have since been
consistently used in neo-classical
European architecture.

Sometimes the Doric order is considered

the earliest order, but there is no evidence
to support this. Rather, the Doric and Ionic
orders seem to have appeared at around
the same time, the Ionic in eastern Greece
and the Doric in the west and mainland.

Both the Doric and the Ionic order appear

to have originated in wood. The Temple of
Hera in Olympia is the oldest well-
preserved temple of Doric architecture. It
was built just after 600 BC. The Doric
order later spread across Greece and into
Sicily where it was the chief order for
monumental architecture for 800 years.
Early Greeks were no doubt aware of the
use of stone columns with bases and
capitals in Ancient Egyptian architecture,
and that of other Near Eastern cultures,
although there they were mostly used in
interiors, rather than as a dominant feature
of all or part of exteriors, in the Greek
style.
The Doric order of the Parthenon

Doric order

The Doric order originated on the mainland

and western Greece. It is the simplest of
the orders, characterized by short,
organized, heavy columns with plain,
round capitals (tops) and no base. 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 16 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 square slab of stone.

Above the capital is a square abacus

connecting the capital to the entablature.
The Entablature is divided into three
horizontal registers, the lower part of
which is either smooth or divided by
horizontal lines. The upper half is
distinctive for the Doric order. The frieze of
the Doric entablature is divided into
triglyphs and metopes. A triglyph is a unit
consisting of three vertical bands which
are separated by grooves. Metopes are the
plain or carved reliefs between two
triglyphs.
The Greek forms of the Doric order come
without an individual base. They instead
are placed directly on the stylobate. Later
forms, however, came with the
conventional base consisting of a plinth
and a torus. The Roman versions of the
Doric order have smaller proportions. As a
result, they appear lighter than the Greek
orders.

Ionic order

Ionic order
The Ionic order came from eastern Greece,
where its origins are entwined with the
similar but little known Aeolic order. It is
distinguished by slender, fluted pillars with
a large base and two opposed volutes
(also called scrolls) in the echinus of the
capital. The echinus itself is decorated
with an egg-and-dart motif. The Ionic shaft
comes with four more flutes than the Doric
counterpart (totalling 24). The Ionic base
has two convex moldings called tori which
are separated by a scotia.

The Ionic order is also marked by an

entasis, a curved tapering in the column
shaft. A column of the ionic order is nine
times its lower diameter. The shaft itself is
eight diameters high. The architrave of the
entablature commonly consists of three
stepped bands (fasciae). The frieze comes
without the Doric triglyph and metope. The
frieze sometimes comes with a
continuous ornament such as carved
figures instead.

Corinthian order
Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is the most ornate of

the Greek orders, characterized by a
slender fluted column having an ornate
capital decorated with two rows of
acanthus leaves and four scrolls. It is
commonly regarded as the most elegant
of the three orders. The shaft of the
Corinthian order has 24 flutes. The column
is commonly ten diameters high.

The Roman writer Vitruvius credited the

invention of the Corinthian order to
Callimachus, a Greek sculptor of the 5th
century BC. The oldest known building
built according to this order is the
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in
Athens, constructed from 335 to 334 BC.
The Corinthian order was raised to rank by
the writings of Vitruvius in the 1st century
BC.

Roman orders
The Romans adapted all the Greek orders
and also developed two orders of their
own, basically modifications of Greek
orders. However, it was not until the
Renaissance that these were named and
formalized as the Tuscan and Composite,
respectively the plainest and most ornate
of the orders. The Romans also invented
the superposed order. A superposed order
is when successive stories of a building
have different orders. The heaviest orders
were at the bottom, whilst the lightest
came at the top. This means that the Doric
order was the order of the ground floor, the
Ionic order was used for the middle story,
while the Corinthian or the Composite
order was used for the top story.

The Colossal order was invented by

architects in the Renaissance. The
Colossal order is characterized by
columns that extend the height of two or
more stories.
The Tuscan order in Andrea Palladio, Quattro Libri di
Architettura, 1570

Tuscan order

The Tuscan order has a very plain design,

with a plain shaft, and a simple capital,
base, and frieze. It is a simplified
adaptation of the Doric order by the
Greeks. The Tuscan order is characterized
by an unfluted shaft and a capital that only
consists of an echinus and an abacus. In
proportions it is similar to the Doric order,
but overall it is significantly plainer. The
column is normally seven diameters high.
Compared to the other orders, the Tuscan
order looks the most solid.

Composite order

Composite order

The Composite order is a mixed order,

combining the volutes of the Ionic with the
leaves of the Corinthian order. Until the
Renaissance it was not ranked as a
separate order. Instead it was considered
as a late Roman form of the Corinthian
order. The column of the Composite order
is typically ten diameters high.

Historical development of the

orders

The St-Gervais-et-St-Protais Church in Paris presents

columns of the three orders : Doric at the ground floor,
Ionic at the second floor, Corinthian at the third floor
The Tower of The Five Orders at the Bodleian Library at
Oxford University, completed in 1619, includes Tuscan
through Composite orders.

The Renaissance period saw renewed

interest in the literary sources of the
ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, and
the fertile development of a new
architecture based on classical principles.
The treatise De architectura by Roman
theoretician, architect and engineer
Vitruvius, is the only architectural writing
that survived from Antiquity. Rediscovered
in the 15th century, Vitruvius was instantly
hailed as the authority on architecture.
However, in his text the word order is not
to be found. To describe the four species
of columns (he only mentions: Tuscan,
Doric, Ionic and Corinthian) he uses, in
fact, various words such as: genus
(gender), mos (habit, fashion, manner),
opera (work).

The term order, as well as the idea of

redefining the canon started circulating in
Rome, at the beginning of the 16th century,
probably during the studies of Vitruvius'
text conducted and shared by Peruzzi,
Raphael and Sangallo.[5] Ever since, the
definition of the canon has been a
collective endeavor that involved several
generations of European architects, from
Renaissance and Baroque periods, basing
their theories both on the study of
Vitruvius' writings and the observation of
Roman ruins (the Greek ruins became
available only after Greek Independence,
1821–23). What was added were rules for
the use of the Architectural Orders, and the
exact proportions of them down to the
most minute detail. Commentary on the
appropriateness of the orders for temples
devoted to particular deities (Vitruvius
I.2.5) were elaborated by Renaissance
theorists, with Doric characterized as bold
and manly, Ionic as matronly, and
Corinthian as maidenly.[6]

Vignola defining the concept

of "order"
Following the examples of Vitruvius and
the five books of the Regole generali di
architettura sopra le cinque maniere de gli
edifici by Sebastiano Serlio, published from
1537 onwards, Giacomo Barozzi da
Vignola produced an architecture rule
book that was not only more practical than
the previous two treatises, but also was
systematically and consistently adopting,
for the first time, the term order to define
each of the five different species of
columns inherited from Antiquity. A first
publication of the various plates, as
separate sheets, appeared in Rome in
1562, with the title: Regola delli Cinque
Ordini di Architettura (Canon of the Five
Orders of Architecture [7]). As David Watkin
has pointed out, Vignola's book "was to
have an astonishing publishing history of
over 500 editions in 400 years in ten
languages, Italian, Dutch, English, Flemish,
French, German, Portuguese, Russian,
Spanish, Swedish, during which it became
perhaps the most influential book of all
times".[8] The book consisted simply of an
introduction followed by 32 annotated
plates, highlighting the proportional
system with all the minute details of the
Five Architectural Orders. According to
Christof Thoenes, the main expert of
Renaissance architectural treatises, "in
accordance with Vitruvius’s example,
Vignola chose a “module” equal to a half-
diameter which is the base of the system.
All the other measurements are expressed
in fractions or in multiples of this module.
The result is an arithmetical model, and
with its help each order, harmoniously
proportioned, can easily be adapted to any
given height, of a façade or an interior.
From this point of view, Vignola's Regola is
a remarkable intellectual achievement".[1]

In America, The American Builder's

Companion,[9] written in the early 19th
century by the architect Asher Benjamin,
influenced many builders in the eastern
states, particularly those who developed
what became known as the Federal style.
The last American re-interpretation of
Vignola's Regola, was edited in 1904 by
William Robert Ware.[10]
The break from the classical mode came
first with the Gothic revival, then the
development of modernism during the
19th century. The Bauhaus promoted pure
functionalism, stripped of superfluous
ornament, and that has become one of the
defining characteristics of modern
architecture. There are some exceptions.
Postmodernism introduced an ironic use
of the orders as a cultural reference,
divorced from the strict rules of
composition. On the other hand, a few
practitioners e.g. Quinlan Terry and Stuart
Martin still work in a traditional classical
idiom.
Nonce orders
Several orders, usually based upon the
composite order and only varying in the
design of the capitals, have been invented
under the inspiration of specific occasions,
but have not been used again. They are
termed "nonce orders" by analogy to nonce
words; several examples follow below.
These nonce orders all express the
“speaking architecture” (architecture
parlante) that was taught in the Paris
courses, most explicitly by Étienne-Louis
Boullée, in which sculptural details of
classical architecture could be enlisted to
speak symbolically, the better to express
the purpose of the structure and enrich its
visual meaning with specific
appropriateness. This idea was taken up
strongly in the training of Beaux-Arts
architecture, ca 1875–1915.

British Order

Robert Adam's brother James was in

Rome in 1762, drawing antiquities under
the direction of Clérisseau; he invented a
British Order and published an engraving
of it. Its capital the heraldic lion and
unicorn take the place of the Composite's
volutes, a Byzantine or Romanesque
conception, but expressed in terms of
neoclassical realism. Adam's ink-and-wash
rendering with red highlighting is at the
Avery Library, Columbia University.

Ammonite order and Agricultural order

In 1789 George Dance invented an

Ammonite Order, a variant of Ionic
substituting volutes in the form of fossil
ammonites for John Boydell's
Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall,
London.[11] An adaptation of the Corinthian
order by William Donthorne that used
turnip leaves and mangelwurzel is termed
the Agricultural order.[12][13]
Corn capital at the Litchfield Villa Prospect Park
(Brooklyn) (A.J. Davis, architect)

American orders

In the United States Benjamin Latrobe, the

architect of the Capitol building in
Washington DC, designed a series of
botanical American orders. Most famous
is the order substituting corncobs and
their husks, which was executed by
Giuseppe Franzoni and employed in the
small domed Vestibule of the Supreme
Court. Only the Supreme Court survived
the fire of 24 August 1814, nearly intact.
With peace restored, Latrobe designed an
American order that substituted for the
acanthus tobacco leaves, of which he sent
a sketch to Thomas Jefferson in a letter,
5 November 1816. He was encouraged to
send a model of it, which remains at
Monticello. In the 1830s Alexander
Jackson Davis admired it enough to make
a drawing of it. In 1809 Latrobe invented a
second American order, employing
magnolia flowers constrained within the
profile of classical mouldings, as his
drawing demonstrates. It was intended for
"the Upper Columns in the Gallery of the
Entrance of the Chamber of the Senate"
("United States Capitol exhibit" .).

The Delhi order at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi

Delhi order

Sir Edwin Lutyens, who from 1912 laid out

New Delhi as the new seat of government
for the British Empire in India,[14] designed
a Delhi Order having a capital displaying a
band of vertical ridges, and with bells
hanging at each corner as a replacement
for volutes.[15] His design for the new city's
central palace, Viceroy's House, now the
Presidential residence Rashtrapati Bhavan,
was a thorough integration of elements of
Indian architecture into a building of
classical forms and proportions,[16] and
made use of the order throughout.[15] The
Delhi Order reappears in some later
Lutyens buildings including Campion Hall,
Oxford.[17]

See also
Temple (Greek)
Temple (Roman)
De architectura by Vitruvius
Persian column
External video

Smarthistory - The Classical orders A

Smarthistory video.

Notes
1. author., Bury, J. B. (John Bagnell), 1861-
1927,. A history of Greece : to the death of
Alexander the Great .
ISBN 9781316163498. OCLC 911636170 .
2. Gwilt, Joseph (1842). An Encyclopædia
of Architecture: Historical, Theoretical, and
Practical . London: Longman, Brown, Green,
and Longmans. p. 680.
3. Summedickrson, 7-15
4. Summerson, 19-21
5. H. Burns and H. Gunthers, 24éme
Colloque International d'Etude Humanistes,
Tours 1981
6. Julian Small, "The five orders of classical
architecture" .
7. The most recent English translation is the
one, with an introduction and commentary
by Branko Mitrovic, N.Y. 1999
8. David Watkin, Introduction to the Canon
of the Five Orders of Architecture,
translated by John Leeke, reprint of the
1699 edition, N.Y., 2011
9. Benjamin, Asher (1827). The American
Builder's Companion: Or, a System of
Architecture Particularly Adapted to the
Present Style of Building. Dover
Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-22236-3.
10. Ware, William R. (1994). The American
Vignola: a guide to the making of classical
architecture . Courier Dover Publications.
p. 160. ISBN 978-0-486-28310-4.
11. Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan
(2016). Oxford Dictionary of Architecture.
Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-
19-967499-2.
12. Curl, p. 238
13. Curl, p. 11
14. Gradidge, Roderick (1981). Edwin
Lutyens: Architect Laureate. London, UK:
George Allen and Unwin. p. 69. ISBN 0-04-
720023-5.
15. Gradidge, Roderick (1981). Edwin
Lutyens: Architect Laureate. London:
George Allen and Unwin. p. 151. ISBN 0-04-
720023-5.
16. Wilhide, Elizabeth (2012). Sir Edwin
Lutyens: Designing in the English Tradition.
London: National Trust Books. pp. 41–42.
ISBN 9781907892271.
17. Gradidge, Roderick (1981). Edwin
Lutyens: Architect Laureate. London:
George Allen and Unwin. p. 161. ISBN 0-04-
720023-5.

References
Summerson, John, The Classical
Language of Architecture, 1980 edition,
Thames and Hudson World of Art series,
ISBN 0500201773

Further reading
Barletta, Barbara A., The Origins of the
Greek Architectural Orders (Cambridge
University Press) 2001
Barozzi da Vignola, Giacomo, Canon of
the Five Orders, Translated into English,
with an introduction and commentary by
Branko Mitrovic, Acanthus Press, N.Y.,
1999
Barozzi da Vignola, Giacomo, Canon of
the Five Orders, Translated by John
Leeke (1669), with an introduction by
David Watkin, Dover Publications, N.Y.,
2011
Chitham, Robert (2005). The Classical
Orders Of Architecture .
Elsevier/Architectural Press. ISBN 978-
0-7506-6124-9.
James Stevens Curl (2003). Classical
Architecture: An Introduction to Its
Vocabulary and Essentials, With a Select
Glossary of Terms. W. W. Norton &
Company. ISBN 978-0-393-73119-4.
John Newenham Summerson (1963).
The Classical Language of Architecture.
The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-69012-
6.
Tzonis, Alexander.; Lefaivre, Liane.
(1986). Classical architecture: the
poetics of order. The MIT Press.
ISBN 978-0-262-70031-3.
Gromort, Georges (2001). The Elements
of Classical Architecture . W. W. Norton
 & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-73051-7.

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