DK CHING HOA (ORDER)

Order

Any of five styles of classical architecture characterized by the type of arrangement of columns and entablature employed, as the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite orders.

Entablature

The horizontal section of a classical order that rests on the columns, usually composed of a cornice, frieze, and architrave.

Cornice

The uppermost member of a classical entablature, consisting typically of a cymatium, corona, and bed molding.

Cymatium

The crowning member of a classical cornice, usually a cyma recta.

Corona

The projecting, slab-like member of a classical cornice, supported by the bed molding and crowned by the cymatium.

Bed molding

The molding or group of moldings immediately beneath the corona of a cornice.

Frieze

The horizontal part of a classical entablature between the cornice and architrave, often decorated with sculpture in low relief.

Architrave

The lowermost division of a classical entablature, resting directly on the column capitals and supporting the frieze.

Column

A cylindrical support in classical architecture, consisting of a capital, shaft, and usually a base, either monolithic or built up of drums the full diameter of the shaft.

Capital

The distinctively treated upper end of a column, pillar, or pier, crowning the shaft and taking the weight of the entablature or architrave.

Shaft

The central part of a column or pier between the capital and the base.

Base

The lowermost portion of a wall, column, pier, or other structure, usually distinctively treated and considered as an architectural unit.

Pedestal

A construction upon which a column, statue, memorial shaft, or the like, is elevated, usually consisting of a cornice or cap, a dado and a base

Dado

The part of a pedestal between the base and the cornice or cap.

Plinth

The usually square slab beneath the base of a column, pier, or pedestal.

Columniation

The use or arrangement of columns in a structure.

Distyle

Having two columns on one or each front

Tristyle

Having three columns on one or each front

Tetrastyle

Having four columns of one or each front

Pentastyle

Having five columns on one or each front

Hexastyle

Having six columns on one or each front

Heptastyle

Having seven columns on one or each front

Octastyle

Having eight columns on one or either front.

Enneastyle

Having nine columns on one or on each front, Also, enneastylar.

Decastyle

Having 10 columns on one or either front. Also, dodecastylar, duodecastyle.

Intercolumniation

The space between two adjacent columns, usually the clear space between the lower parts of the shafts, measured in diameters. Also, a system for spacing columns in a colonnade based on this measurement.

Pycnostyle

Having an intercolumniation of 1 ½ diameters

Systyle

Having an intercolumniation of two diameters

Eustyle

Having an intercolumniation of 2 ¼ diameters

Diastyle

Having an intercolumniation of three diameters

Araeostyle

Having an intercolumniation of four diameters. Also areostyle

Accouplement

The placement of two columns or pilasters very close together.

Doric order

The oldest and simplest of the five classical orders, developed in Greece in the 7th century B.C. and later imitated by the Romans, characterized by a fluted column having no base, a plain cushion-shaped capital supporting a square abacus, and an entablature consisting of a plain architrave, a frieze of triglyphs and metopes, and a cornice, the corona of which has mutules on its soffit. In the Roman Doric order, the columns are more slender and usually have bases, the channeling is sometimes altered or omitted, and the capital consists of a band-like necking, an echinus, and a molded abacus

Mutule

A projecting flat block under the corona of a Doric cornice, corresponding to the modillion of other orders.

Gutta

One of a series of small, drop-like ornaments, attached to the undersides of the mutules and regulae of a Doric entablature. Also called drop.

Triglyph

One of the vertical blocks separating the metopes in a Doric frieze, typically having two vertical grooves or glyph on its face, and two chamfers or hemiglyphs at the sides.

Metope

Any of the panels, either plain or decorated, between triglyphs in the Doric frieze. Also called intertriglyph.

Zophorus

A frieze bearing carved figures of people or animals. Also, zoophorus.

Taenia

A raised band or fillet separating the frieze from the architrave on a Doric entablature. Also, tenia.

Regula

A fillet beneath the taenia in a Doric entablature, corresponding to a triglyph above and from which guttae are suspended. Also called guttae band.

Abacus

The flat slab forming the top of a column capital, plain in the Doric style, but molded or otherwise enriched in other styles.

Echinus

The prominent circular molding supporting the abacus of a Doric or Tuscan capital.

Necking

The upper part of a column, just above the shaft and below the projecting part of the capital, when differentiated by a molding, groove, or the omission of fluting.

Annulet

An encircling band, molding, or fillet, on a capital or shaft of a column.

Fluting

A decorative motif consisting of a series of long, rounded, parallel grooves, as on the shaft of a classical column.

Tuscan Order

A classical order of Roman origin, basically a simplified Roman Doric characterized by an unfluted column and a plain base, capital, and entablature having no decoration other than moldings.

Trachelium

That part of the necking between the hypotrachelium and the capital of a classical column.

Hypotrachelium

Any member between the capital and the shaft of a classical column.

Entasis

A slight convexity given to a column to correct an optical illusion of concavity if the sides were straight.

Drum - Any of several cylindrical stones laid one above the other to form of a column or pier.

Ionic order

A classical order that developed in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor in the 6th century B.C, characterized esp. by the spiral volutes of its capital. The fluted columns typically had molded bases and supported an entablature consisting of an architrave of three fascias, a richly ornamented frieze, and a cornice corbeled out on egg-and-dart and dentil moldings. Roman and Renaissance examples are often more elaborated, and usually set the volutes of the cattails 45 degrees to the architrave.

Egg and dart

An ornamental motif for enriching an ovolo or echinus, consisting of a closely set, alternating series of oval and pointed forms. Also called egg and tongue.

Dentil

Any of a series of closely spaced, small, rectangular blocks forming a molding or projecting beneath the coronas of Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite cornices.

Fascia

One of the three horizontal bands making up the architrave in the Ionic order.

Volute

A spiral, scroll-like ornament, as on the capitals of the Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite orders.

Cathetus

The vertical guideline through the eye of a volute in an Ionic capital, from which the spiral form is determined.

Echinus

The circular molding under the cushion of an Ionic capital between the volutes, usually carved with an egg-anddart pattern. Also called cymatium.

Fillet

A narrow part of the surface of a column left between adjoining flutes.

Apophyge

A small, concave curve joining the shaft of a classical column to its base. Also called apophysis.

Attic base

A base to a classical column, consisting of an upper and a lower-torus separated by a scotia between two fillets.

Scotia

A deep concave molding between two fillets. Also called trochilus.

Torus

A large convex, semicircular molding commonly found directly above the plinth of the base of a classical column.

Composite order

One of the five classical orders, popular esp. since the beginning of the Renaissance but invented by the ancient Romans in which the Corinthian order is modified by superimposing four diagonally set Ionic volutes on a bell of Corinthian acanthus leaves.

Corinthian order

The most ornate of the five classical orders, developed by the Greeks in the 4th century B.C. but used more extensively in Roman architecture, similar in most respects to the Ionic but usually of slenderer proportions and characterized esp. by deep bell-shaped capital decorated with acanthus leaves and an abacus with concave sides.