Illustrated Architecture Dictionary
Illustrated Architecture Dictionary
Doric
Doric order: The column and entablature developed by the Dorian Greeks
The Orders of classical architecture were formalized by the Greeks and applied to the design and proportion of buildings used the post-and-lintel, or column and entablature construction
The Doric Order emerged in the sixth century BC, and was followed by the Ionic Order in the east Greek territories of Anatolia. ...
The Doric Order of architecture was little used by the Romans in Italy. The Tuscan order was a simplified version with base, unfluted shaft and simply molded capital.
- British Museum Pattern Books: Roman Designs, by Eva Wilson, 1999
The Doric Order was the oldest (sixth century BC ) and plainest of the three orders of classical Greek architecture. The Doric order was developed in the lands occupied by the Dorians, one of the two principal divisions of the Greek race. It became the preferred style of the Greek mainland and the western colonies (southern Italy and Sicily).
The other classical Greek orders are Ionic and Corinthian.
In the Roman Doric order, the columns are more slender, usually have bases, and the fluting is sometimes altered or omitted.
Doric entablature: A plain architrave, a frieze of alternating triglyphs and metopes, and a plain crowning cornice.The soffit (underside) of the cornice bore projecting square blocks known as mutules
Doric column: Heavy, fluted column with plain saucer-shaped capital and no baseDoric columns are generally carved with vertical, parallel channels known as flutes, which should, properly speaking, number twenty.
Entasis: From early times the Greeks incorporated intentional distortions, including entasis, a slight curving of the outline of the shaft of the column so that it was wider in the middle. This corrected an optical illusion that perfectly straight sides appeared concave.
Doric capital: The upper section of the column consists of a cushionlike convex molding known as an "echinus," and a square slab termed an "abacus."
See also: Greek Revival Style ... Vitruvius Pollio, "The Ten Books on Architecture"
Examples from Buffalo architecture
- Illustration above: Birge Memorial - Doric order
- Buswell Mausoleum - Doric order
- Letchworth-Skinner Mausoleum - Doric order
- Knox Mausoleum - Doric order
- Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Museum - Doric order
- Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society Museum - Doric column
- Birge Memorial - Doric column
- Knox House - Doric capital
- Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society Museum - Doric capital
- Forest Lawn Administration Building - Doric capital
Examples from Europe:
- 2 Drawings from Andrea Palladio's The Four Books of Architecture
- Parthenon, Athens, Greece - Doric order
- Propylaia, Athens, Greece - Doric order
- Olympia Sanctuary, Greece - Doric order
- Valley of the Temples, Agrigento, Sicily - Doric order
- Temple at Segesta, Sicily - Doric order
