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 · Theory · Proportion
The six principles of design
Architecture depends on order (ordinatio), arrangement (dispositio), eurythmy, symmetry, propriety (decor) and economy (distributio).
Order is the choice of a module and the adjustment of each part to it; arrangement is the placing of the parts, shown in plan, elevation and perspective; eurythmy is the graceful look that results when heights, breadths and lengths correspond; symmetry is the agreement of every part with the whole through the module; propriety is the fitness of a building for its purpose and deity; economy is the sensible use of materials and money.
Vitruvius’s “symmetry” is not mirror symmetry but commensurability: every dimension a multiple or simple fraction of the module. The figures in this book are drawn on the same principle: each member is a set multiple of the module.
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)
Give the flight of steps before a temple an odd number, so that one who starts with the right foot will also set the right foot first on the top.
Make the corner columns thicker than the rest by a fiftieth of their diameter, because, seen against the open sky, they look thinner than they are.
D corner = D × (1 + 1⁄50); Parthenon: 1.95 m against 1.905 m
To end the frieze with a triglyph at the corner and keep every metope square, move the corner column inward: make the last intercolumniation narrower than the others by the amount the corner triglyph is displaced.
contraction c = e − t⁄2; Parthenon: 4.29 m normal, 3.68 m at the corners (c ≈ 0.61 m)
Let one simple ratio govern the whole: at the Parthenon the lower diameter is to the axial spacing, the width of the stylobate to its length, and the height of the order to the width of the front, all very nearly as 4 is to 9.
D : axial spacing ≈ 1.905 : 4.296 ≈ 4 : 9; stylobate 30.88 : 69.50 ≈ 4 : 9
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The six principles of design”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/vitruvius-six-principles. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.