LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Greek and Roman Architecture: Orders
built 286 days ago
The most prominent element of Greek and Roman architecture is the column, which is technically referred to as an "order". There are three primary Greek columns: the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Doric column was used as far back as the 7th century BC. The Doric column is the most frequently used column in classically inspired architecture. The Doric column is cylindrical and simply styled, and of the most primitive design, and because of this, it is rather versatile, and works well with many different decor styles.
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The Greeks started a vocabulary for architecture and architecture detail. Classical Greek architecture consisted of three orders: the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. These orders distinguished the basic components of a Greek building with columns, capitals, entablature, and pediments. Each of the orders had its own distinctive look. There was often a sculptured frieze. Greeks never combined different orders.
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Neoclassical architecture often uses the orders of classical Greek and Roman architecture to achieve effects of balance and harmony. Pillars, capitals and porticos are frequent, and in England many new public buildings were constructed in the Neoclassical style. But private homes and interiors were ... decorated with geometric shapes, pillars and pilasters, and the characteristic rounded archways of Neoclassicism.
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After generations of experimentation with buildings of limited variety the Greeks gave to the simple post-and-lintel system the purest, most perfect expression it was to attain (see Parthenon; orders of architecture). Roman architecture, borrowing and combining the columns of Greece and the arches of Asia, produced a wide variety of monumental buildings throughout the Western world. Their momentous invention of concrete enabled the imperial builders to exploit successfully the vault construction of W Asia and to cover vast unbroken floor spaces with great vaults and domes, as in the rebuilt Pantheon (2d cent. a.d.; see under pantheon).
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Neoclassical buildings employ a wide range of motifs from Greek and Roman architecture. Unlike the earlier Greek Revival movement, which called for the use of the narrow side of the rectangular footprint to serve as the front elevation, the broad aspect of a Neoclassical building usually included its ceremonial entrance with its characteristic full-height entry porch. Public buildings of the period became the principal manifestation of the Neoclassical style although some residential and commercial structures show Neoclassical influence. Specific motifs include all the various classical orders of columns, symmetrical design, classical window surrounds, and domes.
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The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of Ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Greek Doric order was the earliest of these, known from the 7th century BC and reaching its mature form in the 5th century BC.In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base; their vertical shafts were fluted with parallel concave grooves; and they were topped by a smooth capital that flared from the column to meet a square abacus at the intersection with the horizontal beam ("entablature") that they carried.
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