Glossary · C
Column
A vertical support, normally circular in section, consisting of base, shaft and capital. In classical architecture its lower diameter is the module from which the whole order is proportioned.
Rules that use the word
Timber spans where stone cannot. Weight for weight, timber is many times stronger in bending than stone; long spans in trabeated buildings are therefore roofed with timber beams resting on stone walls and columns.
Raise the central aisle and light it from above. In a great columned hall make the columns of the central aisle taller than the rest, and fill the difference in height with stone grilles, so that light enters high up over the side aisles.
The column is a plant. Model the column on a plant of the Nile (a papyrus stem or bundle, a bundle of lotus, a palm trunk), bound at the neck with five bands, standing on a round base disc and carrying a small square abacus.
Open flowers in the light, buds in the shade. Give the columns of the tall, clerestory-lit central aisle open papyrus capitals and those of the lower aisles closed buds.
The fluted shaft before the Greeks. Cut a shaft with sixteen shallow flutes or facets, give it a square abacus and a low round base: the “proto-Doric” column of the Middle Kingdom rock tombs at Beni Hasan.
Slender columns under a timber roof. Where the roof is of timber, make the columns tall, slender (about twelve diameters) and widely spaced, and fill the hall with them on a square grid.
Where it appears in the book
In the chapters What Is Architecture?, Post and Lintel, Walls and Openings, The Arch, Domes, The Roof, Proportion and Number, Frame and Skin.
A feature of Aegean Bronze Age, Ancient Egyptian, Chinese, Ancient Greek, Achaemenid Persian, Ancient Roman, Early Christian, Korean, Japanese, Hindu Temple: Dravida (South Indian) architecture.
Nearby in the glossary
Close studding · Clump · Coffer · Collar · Commensurability · Compluvium · Composite · Compound pier