To unify a façade of two or more storeys, run a single order of pilasters or columns through all of them, from the base to the main cornice.
The principal floor raised on a basement
Raise the principal rooms of a house on a basement storey that holds the kitchens, cellars and service rooms, and reach them by an external stair; put the lesser rooms above them.
Palladio wanted the service rooms of a villa to be partly below ground, where they would be dry and cool and out of sight, and the owner’s rooms lifted above them, where they would be healthier, better lit and more dignified. The raised floor, the piano nobile, is reached by a flight of steps to the portico, which makes arrival a small ceremony and gives the house its temple-like base. At the Villa Rotonda the four flights of steps and the porticoes make the principle visible on every side.
Related rules
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.
Lay the ideal garden out on a circular plan in concentric rings, woods outside, then meadows and orchards, then gardens of knots and clipped evergreens divided by walks, with water and the fountain of the goddess at the centre.
Take the plan, the orders and the details from the builders’ pattern books, simplified for timber and for the carpenter: a symmetrical front, a central hall and stair with rooms either side, a doorway under a pediment or fanlight, and mouldings drawn to be made with the plane.
Seek in every building only fitness (solidity, healthiness, convenience) and economy (symmetry, regularity, simplicity); a building that has these will please, and ornament added for its own sake is waste.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The principal floor raised on a basement”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/piano-nobile. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.