A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. The term column applies especially to a large round support with a capital and a base or pedestal, which is made of stone, or appearing to be so. A small wooden or metal support is typically called a post. Supports with a rectangular or other non-round section are usually called piers.
An order in architecture is a certain assemblage of parts subject to uniform established proportions, regulated by the office that each part has to perform. 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.
The Corinthian order is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order which was the earliest, followed by the Ionic order. In Ancient Greek architecture, the Corinthian order follows the Ionic in almost all respects other than the capitals of the columns.
Ancient Greek architecture came from the Greek-speaking people whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Anatolia and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest remaining architectural works dating from around 600 BC.
The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of columns. Originating in the western Doric region of Greece, it is the earliest and, in its essence, the simplest of the orders, though still with complex details in the entablature above.
The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan, and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order. Of the three classical canonic orders, the Corinthian order has the narrowest columns, followed by the Ionic order, with the Doric order having the widest columns.
In architecture the capital or chapiter forms the topmost member of a column. It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the column's supporting surface. The capital, projecting on each side as it rises to support the abacus, joins the usually square abacus and the usually circular shaft of the column. The capital may be convex, as in the Doric order; concave, as in the inverted bell of the Corinthian order; or scrolling out, as in the Ionic order. These form the three principal types on which all capitals in the classical tradition are based. The Composite order established in the 16th century on a hint from the Arch of Titus, adds Ionic volutes to Corinthian acanthus leaves.
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.
Greek temples were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in ancient Greek religion. The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective ouranic deity took place outside them, within the wider precinct of the sanctuary, which might be large. Temples were frequently used to store votive offerings. They are the most important and most widespread building type in Greek architecture. In the Hellenistic kingdoms of Southwest Asia and of North Africa, buildings erected to fulfill the functions of a temple often continued to follow the local traditions. Even where a Greek influence is visible, such structures are not normally considered as Greek temples. This applies, for example, to the Graeco-Parthian and Bactrian temples, or to the Ptolemaic examples, which follow Egyptian tradition. Most Greek temples were oriented astronomically.
Paestum was a major ancient Greek city on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea in Magna Graecia. The ruins of Paestum are famous for their three ancient Greek temples in the Doric order, dating from about 550 to 450 BC, which are in an excellent state of preservation. The city walls and amphitheatre are largely intact, and the bottom of the walls of many other structures remain, as well as paved roads. The site is open to the public, and there is a modern national museum within it, which also contains the finds from the associated Greek site of Foce del Sele.
Architectural mythology means the symbolism of real-world architecture, as well as architecture described in mythological stories. In addition to language, a myth could be represented by a painting, a sculpture or a building. It is about the overall story of an architectural work, often revealed through art.
Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are called metopes. The raised spaces between the channels themselves are called femur in Latin or meros in Greek. In the strict tradition of classical architecture, a set of guttae, the six triangular "pegs" below, always go with a triglyph above, and the pair of features are only found in entablatures of buildings using the Doric order. The absence of the pair effectively converts a building from being in the Doric order to being in the Tuscan order.
Trachelium is the term in architecture given to the neck of the capital of the Doric and Ionic orders. In the Greek Doric capital it is the space between the annulets of the echinus and the grooves, which marked the junction of the shaft and capital.
The Temple of Hera II, is a Greek temple in Paestum, Campania, Italy. It was built in the Doric order around 460–450 BC, just north of the first Hera Temple. If still in use by the 4th-and 5th century, it would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire.
The Valle dei Templi, or Valley of the Temples, is an archaeological site in Agrigento, Sicily. It is one of the most outstanding examples of ancient Greek art and architecture of Magna Graecia, and is one of the main attractions of Sicily. The term "valley" is a misnomer, the site being located on a ridge outside the town of Agrigento.
Temple E at Selinus in Sicily is a Greek temple of Magna Graecia of the Doric order. It is found on the hill to the east of the city's acropolis. Temple E is also known as the Temple of Hera because an inscription found on a votive stela indicates that it was dedicated to Hera; however, some scholars argue that it must have been dedicated to Aphrodite on the basis of structural parallels. It was built towards the middle of the sixth century BC on top of the foundations of a more ancient building. It is the best conserved of the temples of Selinus but its present appearance is the result of anastylosis performed—controversially—in 1959, by the Italian archaeologist Jole Bovio Marconi.
The Heraion at Foce del Sele is an archaeological site consisting of an Ancient Greek sanctuary complex dedicated to the goddess Hera in Magna Graecia. It was originally located at the mouth of the Sele, about 8 km (5.0 mi) north of the Greek city of Poseidonia, famous for its three standing Greek temples, but is now about 2.3 km (1.4 mi) from the modern coast as a result of the deposition of alluvial sediment by the river. The site is in the modern commune of Capaccio-Paestum, some 80 km (50 mi) south of Naples.
Kardaki Temple is an Archaic Doric temple in Corfu, Greece, built around 500 BC in the ancient city of Korkyra, in what is known today as the location Kardaki in the hill of Analipsi in Corfu. The temple features several architectural peculiarities that point to a Doric origin. The temple at Kardaki is unusual because it has no frieze, following perhaps architectural tendencies of Sicilian temples. It is considered to be the only Greek temple of Doric architecture that does not have a frieze. The spacing of the temple columns has been described as "abnormally wide". The temple also lacked both porch and adyton, and the lack of a triglyph and metope frieze may be indicative of Ionian influence. The temple at Kardaki is considered an important and to a certain degree mysterious topic on the subject of early ancient Greek architecture. Its association with the worship of Apollo or Poseidon has not been established.
The Temple of Athena Polias in Priene was an Ionic Order temple located northwest of Priene’s agora, inside the sanctuary complex. It was dedicated to Athena Polias, also the patron deity of Athens. It was the main temple in Priene, although there was a temple of Zeus. Built around 350 BC, its construction was sponsored by Alexander the Great during his anabasis to the Persian Empire. Its ruins sit at the foot of an escarpment of mount Mycale. It was believed to have been constructed and designed by Pytheos, who was the architect of the great Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was one of the Hellenistic temples that was not reconstructed by Romans.
