Orders of Architecture

I

Introduction

Orders of Architecture, the five classic styles of column, whose proportions and component parts were established in antiquity and elaborated during the Renaissance, and which have been used in classical architecture up to the present day.

In origin columns are not decorative but constructional and functional, being essentially posts that support the lintels or beams on which the roof of a building rests. At the top, they project in order to carry the eaves that shelter the building from the weather. Yet, while retaining their function in the structure of buildings, the orders have evolved as the key components of a rich and fluent language of architecture, elaborated by a succession of architectural and aesthetic theorists and imbued with many layers of meaning. The basic components of an order are the column, with base, shaft, and capital, topped by an entablature, with architrave, frieze, and cornice. Each of these components is in turn broken down into a complex series of elements that have a structural function and symbolic vocabulary of their own.

II

Ancient Greece and Rome

The Greeks knew three orders: the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The Doric is characterized by massive simplicity. The Greek Doric column has no base. It is fluted and supports a frieze containing grooved rectangular blocks (triglyphs). In the more elegant Ionic order, the column is usually fluted and is topped by coiled volutes. The rich Corinthian order displays an elaborate capital featuring decoration derived from leaf forms (based on the acanthus, laurel, and olive) in which suggestions of the Ionic volute can be found. The frieze is often richly decorated.

The Romans adopted the Greek orders in their entirety but gave them a distinctly Roman character. The Roman Doric, for example, provides for a column base. The Roman architect Vitruvius looked for the origins of the different orders in various regions and ascribed to them qualities of appropriateness for different locations and functions, a theme actively pursued by later writers. In addition to the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, Vitruvius recognized a fourth order, the Tuscan—a massive, plain, even rustic order, entirely lacking in surface decoration. The Composite—sometimes called the Roman—order is, in contrast, extremely rich, with a capital in which the foliage of the Corinthian is combined with the volutes of the Ionic order. The existence of the Composite order was recognized only in the Renaissance—by Leon Battista Alberti—at a time when the artistic and decorative language of antiquity was being rediscovered and revived.

The Greeks and Romans used the orders in the context of a religious and political ideology. Certain orders were recommended by Vitruvius as appropriate for the sanctuaries of specific gods—Doric, for example, for Jupiter and Mars—while one of the greatest of surviving Roman buildings, the Colosseum, incorporates four orders (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and a version of the Composite) in its external elevations.

III

The Renaissance

Renaissance writers greatly elaborated the theoretical basis of Classical architecture. Sebastiano Serlio established the definitive canon of the five orders in a series of treatises that embraced the whole substance of architecture. Serlio sought to codify and to lay down rules of proper design, linking the use of the orders to “five styles of buildings” and essentially providing a pattern book for architects and builders. He developed Vitruvius’s theories of appropriateness; Corinthian was, he insisted, “virginal” and therefore highly suitable for churches dedicated to Our Lady.

Serlio’s writings remained a prime source of architectural ideas for centuries, though his work was supplemented by that of Giacomo da Vignola and Andrea Palladio, the first of whose Four Books of Architecture (1570) was devoted to the orders. Outside Italy, the basic vocabulary of the orders was refined and extended by, among others, Philibert Delorme, M. A. Laugier, Vredeman de Vries, Isaac Ware, and Sir William Chambers.

IV

Later Periods

In the 17th and 18th centuries, discussion of the orders moved beyond the matter of strict correctness—the idea that following the example of antiquity was the only proper course—to invention and innovation.

The orders are inseparable from the idea of Classical architecture, but Classicism has always been a developing, constantly changing style of building. Roman architecture fused the orders with a new approach to internal space rooted in the arch and the dome. The Pantheon in Rome is a striking example of that fusion, while the Roman triumphal arch added a new motif to the Classical inheritance, one freely taken up by Renaissance architects and particularly by Donato Bramante in his Tempio Malatestiana at Rimini and the church of San Andrea at Mantua.

Baroque and Rococo designers used the orders with a cavalier disregard for precedent though with supremely dramatic effect. Sir John Soane cast aside the pedantry of the early 19th-century Greek Revival along with the apparatus of the orders to create a highly original, astylistic architecture that looked back to the primitive origins of Classicism. For most of his contemporaries, the use of a Greek style (which they perceived as pure), rather than a Roman style (which they perceived as decadent), was a high priority.

The Classical orders have embodied, at least since the time of Serlio, both imagery and ideology. They have been presented as a physical reflection of both authoritarian and democratic ideals. Hitler entertained visions of transforming Berlin into a Classical city, yet the greatest Classical city ever realized is Washington, D.C. In the 19th century, the dominance of Classicism was challenged but not overthrown as architecture moved towards greater eclecticism.