Glossary · I
Intercolumniation
The clear space between two columns, measured in lower diameters. Vitruvius names five: pycnostyle, systyle, eustyle, diastyle and araeostyle.
See also: Pycnostyle, Systyle, Eustyle, Diastyle, Araeostyle
Rules that use the word
Contract the corner bays. To end the frieze with a triglyph at the corner and keep every metope square, move the corner column inward: make the last intercolumniation narrower than the others by the amount the corner triglyph is displaced.
Vitruvius’s half-metope. Keep every triglyph centred over a column and every intercolumniation equal, and finish the frieze at the corner with a half-metope half a module wide.
The five intercolumniations. Columns may be spaced 1½ diameters apart (pycnostyle), 2 (systyle), 2¼ (eustyle), 3 (diastyle) or more (araeostyle). The eustyle, with a wider central bay of 3 diameters, is the best for use and beauty.
Twice as many intercolumniations on the flanks. In a peripteral temple the flanks have twice as many intercolumniations as the front: six columns in front means eleven along each side, counting the corner columns twice.
Triglyphs over every column, and square metopes. Set a triglyph over the axis of every column and over the middle of every intercolumniation (or two, in a wider bay); make the metopes between them as wide as they are high.
Where it appears in the book
In the chapters What Is Architecture?, How to Use This Book, Post and Lintel, The Tuscan Order, The Doric Order, Columns in Company, The Temple, The Classical World.
Nearby in the glossary
In antis · Inglenook · Inset corner · Insula · Interior street · International Style · Intrados · Ionic