Metope

Also called metopes

The square panel between two triglyphs in a Doric frieze, plain or carved with relief sculpture.

Rules that use the word

The Doric corner conflict. A Doric frieze cannot obey all three of its rules at a corner: triglyphs over the column axes, a triglyph turning the corner, and metopes as broad as they are high. One of them must give way.

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.

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 The Doric Order, Columns in Company, The Classical World.

A feature of Ancient Greek architecture.

Nearby in the glossary

Mastaba · Medhi · Megalith · Megaron · Mihrab · Minaret · Minbar · Mingjian