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.
In his notes on circular plans of large size Stratton says that no circular building on a large scale can be regarded as entirely satisfactory without such steadying features; in one of his examples a tetrastyle portico is joined to the rotunda and a square bay with a semicircular recess answers it at the back.
The same thought appears at a small scale in his notes on round peristyles, where a rectangular portico is inserted into the ring of columns to steady the effect of so many curving lines. The Pantheon, with its temple front, is the prototype.
Raise the central nave above the lean-to roofs of the aisles and pierce the upper walls with a row of windows, the clerestory, so that the middle of a wide hall is lit from high on both sides.
nave height ≈ 1½–2 × nave width; one window over each bay of the arcade
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
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.
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.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Steady a great rotunda with projecting features”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/stratton-steadying-features. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.