Rules · Cities · Site · Façades
Set the principal temple where it can be seen, standing free in its own open space, and raise it on a podium reached by steps, so that it stands above the ordinary business of the town.
For Alberti the temple (his word for a church) is the greatest ornament of a city, and it must be seen to be so. It should stand on a noble site, surrounded by an open square and broad streets, separated from shops and houses; and it should be raised on a base, so that one climbs to it and it rises clear of the crowd. The same podium, he notes, keeps the building dry and gives it dignity.
Lift the dome on a cylindrical or polygonal drum pierced with windows between the ring of the pendentives and the springing of the dome, to light the centre of the church and to make the dome visible from afar.
drum height ≈ ⅓–1 × its radius (Byzantine); much taller in Russian churches
Give the villa garden porticoes for sun and for shade, grottoes made in imitation of nature with tufa and shells, evergreens planted in straight rows at equal distances, and hedges of box; set vines on columns over the walks.
When orders are placed one above another, put the stronger below and the more delicate above (Doric under Ionic under Corinthian), and make each upper column a quarter shorter than the one beneath.
upper column = ¾ lower column; order sequence: Tuscan → Doric → Ionic → Corinthian → Composite
Set arches on piers and frame each bay with an engaged column or pilaster carrying a continuous entablature, so that the arch does the work and the order gives the measure.
arch height ≈ 2 × arch width (Vignola); impost at ⅔ of the column
Combine a central arched opening with two narrower flat-headed openings on either side, the arch springing from the entablature of the side openings.
side lights ≈ ½ central span; arch springs from the lintel of the sides
Do not leave a large circular building as a bare cylinder: steady it with features that break the curve and fix its axes: a portico, stairs, a projecting bay or a recess on the axis.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The temple raised above the city”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/alberti-temple-site. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.