Dr.

Khaled Mohamed Dewidar

Professor of Architecture
Ain Shams University
Vice Dean for teaching and Learning
British University in Egypt

Classical Orders of Architecture

1
"Without symmetry and proportion there can be no principles in
the design of any temple."
Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture (III.1.1)

Vitruvius presents a charming story about the

origin of the Ionic order, taking the principle
that, as a man's foot was one-sixth his height, so
a Doric column should be six times taller than its
diameter at the base. It is true that posterity,
having made progress in refinement and
delicacy of feeling, and finding pleasure in more
slender proportions, has established seven
diameters of the thickness as the height of the
Doric column, and nine as that of the Ionic. The
Ionians, however, originated the order which is
therefore named Ionic."
2
The five Orders of architecture are thus classed:

Tuscan
Doric
Ionic
Corinthian
Composite

3
The Doric, Ionic and Corinthian are the original three Orders invented by
the Greeks and are considered as representing Strength, Wisdom and
Beauty.
The Tuscan and Composite are of Roman origin.
The Orders, as used by the Greeks, were essentially constructive. The
Romans, on the other hand, frequently used them as purely decorative
features, without any structural value; although they continued to use
them constructively, as in the colonnades of forums and temples.

1) Tuscan Order
The Tuscan is the first of the five Orders of Architecture. It is the most
simple and solid of the five orders. It was invented in Tuscany, whence it
derives its name. Its column is seven diameters high; and its capital, base
and entablature have few mouldings. The simplicity of the construction of
this column renders it eligible where ornament would be superfluous.
Sir Henry Wotton in his Elements of Architecture describes it as “a plain,
massive, rural pillar, resembling a sturdy well-limbed labourer, homely
clad”
2) Doric Order
The Doric is the second of the Five Orders of Architecture and the first and
simplest of the Greek Orders. It is plain and natural and is the most
ancient. Its column is eight diameters high and has seldom any ornaments
on base or capital, except mouldings; though the frieze is distinguished by
triglyphs and metopes, and the triglyphs compose the ornaments of the
frieze. The solid composition of this order gives it a preference in
structures where strength and a noble simplicity are chiefly required.
The Doric is the best proportioned of all the orders.
Historic tradition has it that, in about 1,000 B.C., the Dorians, a tribe from
the region to the north of the Gulf of Corinth, invaded and conquered

4
southern Greece. The Dorian’s, then being the dominant race, gave their
name to the style of architecture.
3) Ionic Order
This is the third of the Five Orders of Architecture and the second of the
three Greek Orders. It bears a kind of a mean proportion between the
most solid and delicate orders. Its column is nine diameters high; its
capital is adorned with volutes, and its cornice has denticles. There is both
delicacy and ingenuity displayed in this pillar; the invention of which is
attributed to the Ionians, as the famous Temple of Diana at Ephesus was
of this order. It is said to have been formed after the model of an
agreeable young woman, of an elegant shape, dressed in her hair; as a
contrast to the Doric order which was formed after that of a strong, robust
man.
4) Corinthian Order
This is the fourth of the Five Orders of Architecture and the third of the
three Greek Orders.
The Corinthian is the richest of the five orders, is deemed a master piece of
art, and was invented at Corinth by Callimachus. Its column is ten
diameters high, and its capital is adorned with two rows of leaves, and
eight volutes or scrolls akin to a ram’s horns( as compared with four
volutes on Company Path’s version), which sustain the abacus. The frieze
is ornamented with curious devices, the cornice with denticles and
modillions. This order is used in stately and superb structures.
Legend has it that Callimachus took the hint of the capital of this pillar
from the following remarkable circumstance:
“A freeborn maiden of Corinth was attacked by an illness and died.
After her burial, her nurse collected a few things which used to give the
girl pleasure while she was alive, put them into a basket and placed it on
her grave, covering the basket with a roof- tile for protection .It happened
that the basket was placed over the root of an acanthus. When the plant
grew, the stalks and leaves curled gracefully around the basket, until
reaching the tile they were forced to bend downwards into volutes.
5
Callimachus, a sculptor and a worker in Corinthian bronze, passed by the
grave and observed the basket with the leaves growing round it. Delighted
with the novel style and form, he set about imitating the figure and built
for the Corinthians some columns with capitals designed after that
pattern, and determined the proportions to be allowed in finished works
of the Corinthian Order. The vase of the capital he made to represent the
basket; the abacus, the tile; and the volute, the bending leaves”
5) Composite Order
The Composite, contrived by the Romans, is the last of the Five Orders.
It is compounded of the other orders. Its capital has the two row leaves of
the Corinthian, and the volutes of the Ionic. Its column has the quarter-
round as the Tuscan and Doric orders, is ten diameters high, and its cornice
has denticles or simple modillions. This pillar is generally found in buildings
where strength, elegance and beauty are displayed.
According to Horne, the ancient and original orders of architecture,
revered by Masons, are no more than three, the Doric, Ionic, and
Corinthian. To these the Romans have added two, the Tuscan, which they
made plainer than the Doric, and the Composite, which was more
ornamental, if not more beautiful, than the Corinthian. The first three
orders alone, however, show invention and particular character, and
essentially differ from each other: the two others have nothing but what is
borrowed, and differ only accidentally; the Tuscan is the Doric in its
earliest state; and the Composite is the Corinthian enriched with the Ionic.
To the Greeks, and not to the Romans, we are indebted for what is great,
judicious and distinct in architecture.
As a general comment, it must be noted that whereas the shafts of all five
Orders are fluted with the exception of the Tuscan, the shafts of the
Company Path Temple are all plain or unfluted.

6
A) DORIC ORDERS

The Doric order is the earliest of the classical orders developed by Archaic Greek
civilization and was by far the most popular of the three. The eponymous Dorians were
the dominant tribe of the four main peoples forming ancient Greece and the Dorian
dialect was spoken in a great southward arc stretching across the Aegean from Corfu to
the lower Peloponnesian Peninsula and on to the islands of Crete and Rhodes.
Already well-established in the 7th century BC, the Doric order reached its apotheosis
with the stunning achievement of the Parthenon in 438 BC but eventually fell from favor
by the end of the 2nd century BC. It would spawn both the Roman Doric, an embellished
version with lighter proportions and the addition of the Ionic column base, and much
later the highly simplified Tuscan order, developed in 16th century Italy by Serlio and
Palladio and employed principally for rural architecture, as embodied by Palladio's villas.
In Di Architectura, Vitruvius, a Roman architect who practiced during the reign of
Augustus Caesar, remarked that the Doric was masculine in character and wrote that its
fundamental proportion, a column shaft six times its diameter, deliberately mirrored
"the proportions, strength and beauty of a man's body." (The length of actual shafts
varied between 4½ and 7 column diameters, with the shaft almost uniformly bearing 20
flutes.) He also noted that the Doric was suitable for temples dedicated to such
masculine gods as Hercules and Mars, while the Ionic and Corinthian were more
feminine.

7
Though in truth the Romans used the Corinthian order for just about everything,
Vitruvius's comments reflect the Doric order's thicker, squatter proportions, its
traditional lack of naturalistic or floral ornament and its underlying static, rectilinear
æsthetic logic. There is no point in cataloguing Doric elements here for the umpteenth
time, rather we will examine the Doric column and its all-important capital and attempt
to discern greater meaning than the ancient tidbit Vitruvius has tossed us—and also
something beyond the obvious modern observation that many of its rectilinear elements
(triglyphs, abacus, mutules, and so on) almost certainly are inspired from earlier timber-
frame construction techniques, translated into stone decoration.
The first things to remark about the Doric capital (above and below, examples from the
Parthenon) are its remarkable simplicity and unity. In contrast to the elegant, complex
bifold geometry of the Ionic and the florid outburst that is the Corinthian, the Doric
capital is composed of two visually balanced elemental elements: a thick, squared slab
called the abacus and a flaring, circular pillow beneath named the echinus. Usually, but
not always, three concentric fillets transition the echinus to the shaft, known as annulets.
Even more so than the Ionic order, the origin of the Doric is too diffuse to pinpoint, but
the Archaic Greek impetus to erect monumental dressed stone temples to their gods
obviously sprang from the example of the sacred architecture of ancient Egypt, a
civilization then already in terminal decline. In the late Archaic period the Greeks and
Egypt were carrying out extensive trade and by the 7th century BC Greek neighborhoods
and trading centers had become established in Egypt's most important cities.

8
The general influence of Egypt is clear, as is the direct precedent of the colonnade at
Saqqara (above). We find fluting, inverted from the bowed ribs at Saqqara , and the same
æsthetic/geometric/volumetric rigor, elegance and abstraction. What is so fascinating
with the Doric is exactly this deliberate abstraction, this remarkable renunciation of
naturalistic ornament—exactly as we find at Saqqara. In fact, the Doric appears
deliberately conceived to embody austere geometry and clear, rectilinear volumetrics.
A circular echinus supporting a square abacus. (Above, a capital at the Temple of Zeus at
Olympia.) The circle and the square: Heaven and Earth. The ancient Egyptian principle of
"as above, so below" has been purified and abstracted and, I believe, a unity of opposites
is being expressed. The Egyptian duality is transformed into a single, fusional idea, most
clearly palpable in the overarching æsthetic sense—this volumetric, geometric, abstract
rigor I keep referring to—that is the glue that bonds these constituent ideograms
together: the concept of consciousness itself. Man, the abstract thinker.

It is no coincidence that the Doric temple makes its appearance in the midst of the
intellectual ferment that also sees philosophy's tandem birth. In a nutshell, the Doric
order expresses, quite self-consciously and deliberately, the celebration of man's
conscious rationality, the blossoming of Greek thought. In fact a parallel to the first
recorded Western cosmology, that of Anaximander of Miletus (an Ionian, about which
we'll have more to say in our next post on the Ionic), can and indeed has been drawn, but
I'm not in agreement with Robert Hahn that Anaximander's vision of the earth as a thick,
cylindrical wafer suspended in space finds a literal equivalent in the actual cylindrical
stone blocks, or "drums" that make up a Greek column—first of all, because they are
construction components and not the column itself. This is like some future archeo-
anthropologist concluding that skeletons from our era exhumed with polyester clothing
were doubtless acolytes of string theory, because their garments are composed of a
complex interweaving of imperishable threads. Columns were conceived to be—and
were preferably executed as—monoliths; assembling them from stacked drums was an

9
expedient, a quite-literal "short-cut" never meant to bring attention to itself, let alone be
celebrated as a metaphor for the divine order of creation!

But Hahn's thesis isn't totally wrong, though misplaced (and mostly irrelevant as
Anaximander was born too late to have any decisive influence on the development of
either the Doric or Ionic orders): Anaximander's cosmology is congruent with the
column's symbolism, as both share the idea of a centered infinity and, just as
importantly, an axiality that can be linked to the cosmic axis of earth and the zodiac.
Vitruvius is much closer to the nub of things in symbolically equating the Doric column
with man, and thus the capital with man's head, the locus of consciousness. The columns
(humanity) support the roof (heaven) which shelters the sanctuary (the abode of the
gods). This is the fundamental cosmology being expressed in any Greco-Roman temple.
Not by accident is the word pediment, denoting the triangularly shaped wall found
between the cornice and the sloping roof ends of a Greek temple, a workman's
corruption of the word pyramid.
Doric Columns have a firm place in history and in the tradition of classical architecture.
The ancient styles of construction developed in Greece and Rome were revived and
codified by Renaissance architects and scholars such as Giacomo da Vignola (1507-1573)
and Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). They became known as the Five Orders:

The Tuscan Order (Roman)

The Doric Order (Greek and Roman)
The Ionic Order (Greek and Roman)
The Corinthian Order (Greek and Roman)
The Composite Order (Roman)

These styles were revisited when the Greek Revival movement in the late 18th and early
19th century brought the elements of classical architecture back into vogue. The orders
continue to be the basis for many buildings, particularly public buildings where there is a
desire to express permanence, confidence and a continuity with the past. While public
buildings may adhere to many of the principles defined in a specific order, smaller
buildings, such as homes, may simply adopt columns that are influenced by one of the
orders.

10
Defining the Orders

As defined by Vignola, Palladio and other writers, each of the five orders establishes
guidelines for the characteristics, details and proportions of architectural elements such
as the column and its parts and the entablature and its parts. As far back as the Roman
writer Marcus Vitruvius Pollo (circa 80-70 BCE), there has been a tradition to use the
diameter at the base of a column as a unit of measurement. So, for example, the height
of the entablature of in the Doric order may be referred to as being 2 diameters, while
the height of a column may be referred to as being 6 or 7 diameters.
Characteristics of the Doric Column

The order encompasses the entire building system columns and entablature, while
individual columns have characteristics belonging to one of the orders. In ancient Greece,
Doric columns were stouter than those of the Ionic or Corinthian orders. Their smooth,
round capitals are simple and plain compared to the other two Greek orders. A square
abacus connects the capital to the entablature. In Greece, the Doric column was placed
directly on the pavement or floor without benefit of a base. Examples of Doric columns in
the Greek style include: the Heraeum at Olympus (590 BCE), the Basilica at Paestum
(about 530 BCE) and the Parthenon (447-432 BCE). When the Romans adopted Doric
columns for their buildings, changes were made. Roman Doric columns tend to be
slimmer than the Greek Doric columns. At their base, Roman Doric columns are usually
adorned with the Attic base, composed of an upper and lower torus separated by a
scotia with fillets. Instead of being placed directly on the floor or platform, Roman
columns stand on pads or plinths.
Drawing of Doric Column
Characteristics of the Doric Entablature

The triglyphs and metopes are among of the most distinctive and definitive features of
the Doric order. Triglyphs appear centered above every column, a stylized representation
of the ends of wooden beams as used in post and beam construction. In addition, one or
two triglyphs appear between the columns. Metopes, the space between the triglyphs,
are ideally square in shape and they may be plain or decorated with relief forms. Below
each triglyph are corresponding guttae that appear like pegs used to lock or stabilize the
beams.

11
The Doric Conflict

The strict rules for positioning of elements in the entablature led to a design problem
when the Greek's material changed from wood to stone blocks. In wooden temples, the
triglyphs were literally the ends of wooden beams and they were spaced evenly and
centered when they were directly above a column. When construction materials for
temples changed from wood to stone block, the stone architrave needed full support all
the way to the ends. A controversy arose regarding the proper placement of the triglyph
and the formation of the corner. The design issues and ensuing debate became known as
the Doric Conflict. In some cases, the triglyph was placed at the corner. This changed the
proportions of the metopes closest to the corner and they were no longer square. In
addition, the triglyph was not perfectly centered over the column. In other cases,
builders used a broader triglyph that extended to the corner, but this also disturbed the
harmony of the entablature. The Roman's solution to the Doric Conflict was to leave a
blank space between the final triglyph and the corner, as shown in the example to the
right.

Doric Columns in Famous Buildings and Structures

a) The Parthenon

12
Built in the 5th century BCE, the Parthenon is the most famous surviving building in the Doric
Order. Built to honor the Greek goddess Athena the Parthenon is considered to be an ideal
example of Greek achievement and the finest example of the Doric Order.

The Parthenon is a peripteral Doric temple, meaning that columns run not only in the front of the
the structure but along the sides as well, as shown in the plan to the right. The base of the
Parthenon is 228 x 101.4 feet. The exterior Doric columns are 6.2 feet in diameter and 34.1 feet
tall.

b) The Temple of Hephaestus

Near the Parthenon in Athens, the Temple of Hephaestus is the most complete surviving example
of the Doric Order as applied to a Greek temple. It was built almost entirely of marble during the
years 449 to 415 BCE.

13
B) The Ionic Orders

The Ionic order originated, unsurprisingly, in seafaring Ionia in the early 6th century BC.
Culturally, the Ionians were thoroughly Greek and quite naturally they spoke Ionian, a Greek
dialect. Ionia itself was a small but economically and culturally powerful Greek province, actually
a ridiculously small coastal enclave (no more than 90 x 55 miles in extent, located near Smyrna in
present-day Anatolia, Turkey) that also encompassed the islands of Samos and Chios. Its major
city, Miletus, was an important commercial center and Phocaea was a great port. Both cities
spawned colonies, spreading Ionian influence throughout the eastern Mediterranean, and with
Samos were the backbone of Ionian power and influence.

This loose confederation for a time banded together to form the Ionian League, which was an
early and great center of Greek civilization. Its legacies are staggeringly outsized: the foundations
of Greek philosophy, geometry and mathematics with the Ionian school of the eminent Thales
and his followers Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of
Apollonia; the mystery school founded by Pythagoras of Samos, the great geometer and

14
philosopher; and generations of brilliant artists and architects who deeply influenced the
development of Hellenic art. In fact, if Western civilization was born in ancient Greece, then
Greek civilization can be said to have been born in Ionia.

This Ionian cultural and intellectual explosion ignited in the 6th century BC, at the birth of the
Ionic order, and Ionic temples began to appear on the Greek mainland in the following century.
According to Vitruvius, the architects Rhoikos and Theodorus of Samos built the first of the great
Ionic temples at Samos, dedicated to Hera, circa 580-560 BCE (above, its floor plan and a
surviving capital). Though it stood but a decade before being leveled by an earthquake, the
temple of Hera at Samos was a remarkably ambitious undertaking, famous throughout the Greek
world. Quite simply, it was the first great Greek temple, its footprint large as a soccer field,
rivaling in scale and architectural ambition the temples of Egypt. (Below, the temple of Artemis at
Ephesius, comparable in period and scale.
Here, at the very birth of the Ionic order, we are confronted with a truly monumental
construction that forces us to rethink our notions of the scale of the Greek temple. To give some
sense of this temple's massive size, the Parthenon's stylobate or plinth measures approximately
70 x 31 meters, nearly a third smaller. As Nancy Mitford would say, the temple of Hera at Samos
put Greece—or more truthfully, tiny Ionia—on the map.

The Ionic Column

Ionic column shafts, more slender than the Doric, usually stand eight to nine column diameters
tall and may be fluted or smooth. When fluted, they traditionally carry 24 flutes, as opposed to
20 for the Doric. The flutes are slightly separated, leaving a thin strip of unfluted column between
them known as a fillet, as opposed to the Doric, where the flutes abut at an acute angle. Finally,
Ionic columns have a ringed base and square pad that raises them off the stylobate, or temple
plinth, an element the Doric lacks completely.

15
Its capital is far and away the Ionic order's most remarkable feature, and the capital's most
important characteristic is its bi-fold symmetry, or directional orientation, in contrast to the
Doric's radial unity. That the Ionic capital has clearly defined faces and sides is a crucial
observation to keep in mind as we go digging through the byways of ancient civilizations looking
for its predecessors. If it is a truism that "the lie is different at every level," then it also holds that
the truth is also different at every level, and builds accretively, and the Ionic order presents us
with a multitude of precedents and influences.

The Ionic capital's volutes, also popularly called "eyes," have led to the painfully simplistic
speculation that the Ionic column can be interpreted anthropomorphically, with the fluted shaft
depicting a woman's toga-clad body and the capital her head (and, one supposes, the volutes
must then depict Princess Leia's hair).
Others have proposed that the spiraling volutes depict rams' horns or nautilus shells, and here
we are moving much closer to the truth. The principle underlying both those physical forms is the
Fibonacci sequence, a simple arithmetic progression that regulates and balances natural growth,
including those rams' horns and nautilus shells and all matter of things from artichokes to tree
branches, pine cones, fern heads and so on. You'll also find it topping the neck of classical string
instruments such as violins, violas and cellos—the element called, appropriately enough, the
scroll.

Fibonacci, otherwise known as Leonardo of Pisa, was the first to publish this arithmetical
progression (0; 0+1=1; 1+1=2; 1+2=3; 2+3=5; 3+5=8; 5+8=13...) in 1202, gaining him lasting fame.
But alas, like just about every other bit of knowledge of this nature, he was simply publicly
disseminating elements of the ancient occult knowledge of the Egyptian mystery schools for the
first time. In truth, this formula was part of the Sacred Geometry of ancient Egypt and was also
known to the ancient Vedic civilization as well.

Out of Egypt (again)

16
And how did the occult knowledge of the ancient mysteries, the precious high knowledge of the
Egyptian priestly class, escape Egypt to become known to Greece and then to the West? Through
those wily, intrepid seafarers, the ancient Greeks, of course. A number of very old, very famous
Greeks—among them Thales, Plato and Pythagoras—made quite some names for themselves
after traveling to Egypt to become initiates of the mysteries.

These renowned sages were hardly solitary pilgrims. As we mentioned in our earlier post on the
Doric, Greeks and Egyptians were carrying on a robust economic and cultural trade in the Archaic
period and the Ionians were at its forefront; when the first Ionic temples were being built, Ionia
was in the midst of an Egyptian trade boom.

According to Pliny, the very form of the great temple of Hera at Samos, a grid of 8 x 21 columns
covering roughly 50 x 100 meters, evokes the Egyptian Labyrinth at Hawara, a vast mortuary
complex of twelve courtyards (and according to Heroditus, who had visited) over 3000 rooms
built for Pharaoh Amenemhat III, the last great king of the 12th dynasty. The Labyrinth (above, a
recent computer-generated reconstruction) was one of the wonders of the Ancient world and far
more famous in antiquity than the Great Pyramid. Tragically, the Romans used Hawara as a
quarry and with customary thoroughness so completely effaced the complex that, even after
major excavations, reconstructions of the Labyrinth are still based almost entirely on ancient
descriptions. Nonetheless, Pliny specifically mentions the temple of Hera at Samos, with its dense
grid of columns, as one of the world's great labyrinths, comparable to the Egyptian Labyrinth,
famed for being so bewildering that one had to visit with a ball of string or a native guide. (Below,
a view of the pronaos of the temple of Artemis at Ephesius.)

17
When we seek out the earliest recognizable Archaic precursors to Ionic columns, we first find
ourselves on the isles of Lesbos and Troas, birthplace of the Aeolic capital, composed of two
robust volutes bracketing a palmette. The Lesvs were great poets and pre-eminent seafarers and
colonized the coast of Asia Minor (Anatolia, or contemporary Turkey), and the Aeolian city of
Smyrna was admitted to the Ionian league circa 650 BC, unsurprisingly bringing us full circle back
to Ionia's doorstep. (Below, an Aeolian capital from Neandria in Troas, an ancient city on the
Turkish coast not far from Ionia).

Obviously, this abstracted floral motif is an adaptation of Egyptian lotus and papyrus capitals, and
indeed one of the earliest recognizably Ionic capitals, which rotates the Aeolian volutes to link
them horizontally, creating a pad, has been found in the Greek enclave of Naukratis in Egypt
(below).

18
Assyrian Roots

Formally, the Ionic capital's directionality indicates that its earliest precursors were cap blocks
meant to span and support beams and lintels, a construction technique most elaborated in
Assyrian architecture. Egypt had fallen under control of the Assyrian empire in Archaic times, and
a simple glance at early Assyrian capitals and particularly those used at Persepolis (both below),
indicates that the ultimate inspiration for the Ionic springs from Assyria. (Though Persepolis was
begun a century after the appearance of the Ionic, its architecture exhibits an extremely high
level of refinement, indicating a long prior tradition.)

19
Clearly, the Assyrian capital holds a welter of meanings—those at Persepolis have three tiers of
symbols: bulls, volutes and lotuses, like a triple-scoop ice cream cone. Other Assyrian precursors
depict flowers, humans and rolled papyrus or parchment scrolls (below). The Ionic abstracts and
conflates all these symbols, and this was its genius. The horned bull of Taurus of the Assyrians;
the Egyptian lotus; the papyrus scroll, symbol of human intellect; the Fibonacci sequence, sacred
geometry encoding nature's growth—all these meanings come together in the volutes of the
Ionic capital—a great fusion of ancient knowledge and a symbol above all of the glory of ancient
Ionia.

20
21
C) Corinthian Order

22
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman
architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived
during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the
Composite order. The Corinthian, with its offshoot the Composite, is the most ornate of the
orders, characterized by slender fluted columns and an elaborate capitals decorated with
acanthus leaves and scrolls.

23
The name "Corinthian" is derived from the Greek city of Corinth, although the order first
appeared used externally at Athens. Although of Greek origin, the Corinthian order was actually
seldom used in Greek architecture. It came into its own in Roman practice, following precedents
set by the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus (ca. 2 AD).[1] It is employed in
southern Gaul at the Maison Carrée, Nîmes (illustration, below) and at the comparable podium
temple at Vienne. Other prime examples noted by Mark Wilson Jones are the lower order of the
Basilica Ulpia and the arch at Ancona (both of the reign of Trajan, 98-117) the "column of Phocas"
(re-erected in Late Antiquity but 2nd century in origin), and the "Temple of Bacchus" at Baalbek
(ca. 150 CE).[2]

In comparison to the intellectual and even spiritual encodings that make the Doric and Ionic
orders and their Egyptian forebears so resonant, the origins of the Corinthian order, the last of

24
the three classical orders to emerge from Antiquity, is much more clear and its symbolic meaning
much more self-evident.
The oldest known Corinthian column was found in the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae in
Arcadia, built by the architect Iktinos (who with Kallikrates designed the Parthenon) and dated to
circa 420 BC. Curiously, the temple itself (above, an old photograph, before it was roofed for
restoration) is Doric, with the Ionic employed within the cella, where a single, freestanding
Corinthian column held pride of place. This unusual placement indicates that the column was
likely meant to be a votive column and also makes the temple unique in that its architecture
boasts all three of the Ancient orders. During the next century, the Corinthian order remains an
interior embellishment and its first documented exterior use occurs in Athens, at the famed
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (above and below), erected circa 334 BC. The diminutive
cylindrical tempietto, raised on a cubic base, was crowned by a bronze tripod, the prize that the
patron Lysicrates' choir had won in a competition in the Theatre of Dionysus.The Greeks did not
much care for the Corinthian order and employed it sparsely but the Romans used it for just
about everything, and it is a bit surprising that this most practical of people chose the most
ornate of the Greek orders to make their own. Doubtless, it was exactly the Corinthian order's
inherent decorative qualities that most appealed to them, as well as it being the last and least-
employed of the Greek orders. In a word, the Corinthian's malleability was key to its success in
Imperial Rome: it could be adapted and embellished and its proportions revisited to suit any
situation. (Below, a rare Greek temple using the Corinthian order, the Temple of Olympian Zeus,
Athens.)Vitruvius credits the Corinthian sculptor and architect Callimachus with the order's
invention, recounting the story that he was inspired by a grave marker for a wellborn girl left by
her nurse (first illustration). She had set a basket upon the grave with a roof tile placed upon it to
protect the offerings inside, the girl's favorite objects. In spring, an acanthus grew around the
basket, its young stalks pressed into volutes by the overhanging tile. Callimachus happened to
stroll by and had a Eureka! Moment and the rest, as they say, is history—though likely mostly
story.

25
26
Callimachus was famed for his bravura sculptural technique and is credited with being the first
sculptor to undercut and drill marble to create greater relief in drapery, foliage and hair. The
elaborately undercut acanthus foliage and volutes of the Corinthian capital, which demands just
such sculptural virtuosity, does indeed argue for his authorship. (Below: an early capital from the
Tholos at Epidarius.)Admittedly, we do also find distant precursors in Assyrian architecture,
following the same trail that we did for the Ionic, but the extreme ornamental complexity of the
Corinthian order and its reliance on naturalistic acanthus-leaf decoration are sure signs that we
should not bother to look too deeply for hidden meanings: the Corinthian is a decorative order, a
product of Greece's 'baroque' period. It is a bravura flourish, a complex and contrived
ornamental outburst—a self-conscious creation. Indeed it may well be that one of Vitrivius'
mundane explanations finally happens to be true.

D) Tuscan Order
The Tuscan is the first of the five Orders of Architecture. It is the most simple and solid of
the five orders. It was invented in Tuscany, whence it derives its name. Its column is
seven diameters high; and its capital, base and entablature have few mouldings. The
simplicity of the construction of this column renders it eligible where ornament would be
superfluous.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 Romans.
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.

27
E) Composite Columns
In Classical architecture, a Composite column is a column style that combines the Ionic
and the Corinthian orders of architecture.

Developed by the Romans in about the first century BC, composite columns have highly
decorated capitals (tops). The leaf decorations of the Corinthian style combine with the
scroll designs that characterize the Ionic style.

28
 Conclusion
(1)
The Doric is the oldest of the Orders and was derived from the East.
The column has no base, is short and thick, diminishes sharply from top to bottom or has
a swelling (entasis) in the middle, is fluted with twenty channels, cut at the top by one,
two, or three grooved rings.

The capital, which should be as high as the radius of the bottom of the column, is
composed of an abacus, an echinus (a convex moulding with gently swelling curve), and
annulets (or rings) next to the column.

29
The frieze is divided by alternate triglyphs (projecting tablets with three perpendicular
projecting narrow bands-glyphs) and metopes or flat panels, the latter often being
decorated with carving or sculpture.

The inter-columniation is determined by the number of triglyphs.

The Order is generally massive. Roman Doric is rather lighter, the columns eight
diameters high, sometimes placed on a plinth; in the capital an ovolo is substituted for
the echinus, the annulets are replaced by astragals and an ogee moulding is added to the
abacus.
(2)
In the Ionic Order the column is lofty, the base is cornposed of a torus and two scotiae
separated by many smaller mouldings, the capital consists of a decorated abacus and
below of lamina ending in four volutes, projecting front and back beyond the column.

The frieze is continuous and decorated with foliage or sculpture. Intercolumniation is

wide. Roman Ionic is heavy, the capital especially being overcharged with ornament.

The Ionic column was much used in the seventeenth century and also in the eighteenth,
when it was often surmounted by a Corinthian entablature.
(3)
The Corinthian Order is a richly decorated, elegant style. The column is slender, generally
diminished and fluted; the Attic base, composed of three tori and three scotia divided by
fillets, stands on a square plinth; the capital, ball shaped, has two tiers of acanthus or
olive leaves, with small stalks (caulicoli) rising above and forming four very small volutes,
supporting the abacus, which is scooped in profile and also hollow, describing a concave
curve. The capital is subject to considerable variations within these limits, being much
decorated.
The entablature is elaborate, with well-formed, decorated architrave, a continuous
frieze, plain or ornamented with foliage and sculpture, and a complicated projecting
cornice, the lower member often composed of dentils. This Order was especially
esteemed at the Renaissance, and has been largely adopted in modern work.

30
(4)
The Tuscan or Rustic is a debased Roman rendering of the Donic. The shaft is plain,
cylindrical, or diminished; the base, resting on a square plinth, has a torus moulding; the
capital is composed of an astragal, a smooth neck, and an ovolo; the abacus is cut with an
upward slant and often has a projecting fillet beneath the architrave.

This has a lower and upper smooth fascia divided by a fillet, a projecting tessera
moulding forming the base of the wide, continuous frieze; the cornice is generally
composed of a cavetto, ovolo, corona, cyma recta, and fillet.
(5)
The Composite Order is, in general, a combination of the Ionic and Corinthian. It has the
same proportions as the latter and the same capital, with the exception that the caulicoli
are replaced by the Ionic volute, one at each angle, and the echinus.

It is a very ornate Order and was much favoured at the Renaissance, partly for this
reason and partly because it was so often associated with the arch, an addition which is
one of the distinguishing marks of Roman from Greek architecture.

In Renaissance and Neo-Classic architecture the use of different Orders for succeeding
storeys was frequent.

Thank you
Dr. Khaled Dewidar
May 2016

31
32