Orient the principal axis of the monument on the rising or setting of the sun at a solstice, so that the architecture frames it.
Along the axis: floors rise, roofs fall, light fades
Arrange the temple on a single axis (pylon, open court, hypostyle hall, sanctuary) so that at each threshold the floor rises, the roof descends and the light diminishes, until the god’s shrine is reached in darkness.
The New Kingdom temple is a procession made permanent. From the sunlit court one passes into the dim forest of the hypostyle and then into ever smaller, lower, darker rooms, each a step or a ramp higher than the last. The sanctuary stands on the highest ground, like the primeval mound that rose from the waters at creation; the columns are the marsh plants that grew on it.
Only priests went beyond the court. The model restores a compact temple of this type (compare the Temple of Khonsu at Karnak) and cuts it open along its axis; the dimensions on the right show the three floor levels and the three roof heights.
Related rules
In a great columned hall make the columns of the central aisle taller than the rest, and fill the difference in height with stone grilles, so that light enters high up over the side aisles.
Give the columns of the tall, clerestory-lit central aisle open papyrus capitals and those of the lower aisles closed buds.
Build the town for a royal pyramid in one campaign, as a walled rectangle on a grid of straight streets; wall off the quarter of the labourers’ small houses from the quarter of the officials’ mansions, and give each rank a standard house.
Turn the principal rooms and the columned portico of a house to face north, towards the cool prevailing wind, and keep the walls to the south and west blank against the sun.
Find a granary’s capacity from its measures: multiply length, breadth and height in cubits (or, for a round bin, the square of eight-ninths of the diameter by the height), and add half as much again to turn cubic cubits into the grain measure, the khar.
1 cubic cubit = 1½ khar
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Along the axis: floors rise, roofs fall, light fades”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/temple-axis. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.