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.
Rules · Proportion · Ornament · Optics
Proportion each order for its real size
Do not enlarge or reduce an order by one set of ratios: design its members for the size at which it will be built, the material and the distance from which it is seen. In a large order make the parts relatively finer, in a small one relatively bolder.
Comparing the small Monument of Lysicrates with the portico of the Pantheon, Mauch observes that the Greek order built at the Pantheon’s size would look bold and monstrous, and the Pantheon’s reduced to the size of the monument would look like a model. The ancient builders calculated every part for its actual size; he notes on Plate 3 that the larger the Doric order, the finer its parts were made.
His target is the Renaissance order-book, which gives one rule for columns fifteen feet or fifty feet high, in dark stone or light, polished or rough. The same argument explains why he praises the small Corinthian capital of the Tower of the Winds but would not copy it at great scale.
Related rules
An arch pushes outward on its supports as well as down. For the same load and span the horizontal push grows as the rise falls: halve the rise and you roughly double the thrust.
H ≈ w·s² ⁄ 8f (uniform load w per metre, span s, rise f)
To find how thick the pier of an arch must be, divide the intrados into three equal parts; draw a line from the springing through the first division, and produce it beyond the springing by its own length. A vertical through the end of that line marks the outer face of the pier.
pier ≈ ¼ span (semicircle) · ≈ 0.23 span (equilateral) · less for a lancet
Divide the inside of a dome into coffers that shrink in step with the meridians as they rise, so that their perspective deepens the dome and draws the eye to the light of the lantern.
Edge the beds before the portico with box, clip box into figures of animals set facing one another, and in the garden beyond cut it into many shapes, even into the letters of the owner’s name.
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.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Proportion each order for its real size”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/mauch-scale. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.