Understanding Classical Proportions

when you first start studying the classical orders you'll quickly find there's a whole vocabulary you have new terms to learn every element has a specific size in place and a specific name when it comes to proportioning the orders the keyword you read about most often is diameter diameter refers to the width or is but Rubeus explained that the thickness of the column at its base this simple dimension becomes the basic unit of measurement for proportioning the entire order for example according to most authors the Doric orders column is eight diameters tall the columns base at the bottom and the capital at the top both measure one half of a diameter the shaft of the column has a gradual taper called an N two sister of the column remains cylindrical the upper two-thirds taper so that the diameter at the necking of the capital is five six the diameter of the base the horizontal member or beam that is supported by the column is called the entablature in this Doric example light of the entablature measures two diameters tall just like the column this principal member is also divided into three elements the architrave at the bottom is one-half a diameter while the frieze and cornice above both measure three-quarters of a diameter the projection of the cornice is also determined by the diameter according to vignola the Doric quarters cornice projects out one diameter from the frieze to determine the sizes of the smaller molding details most authors turn to the diameter and begin dividing its dimension into smaller units well not every author uses the same system one common practice is to divide the diameter into 60 equal parts called minutes with this new smaller unit of measurement defined a detailed full-page illustration or plate is used to call out all of the molding dimensions it lists the height of each detail and its projection with this information all of the details can then be carved out the cornice architrave capital and base and then the final details including the triglyphs and the columns channels or flutes an excellent example of this system of proportioning can be found in Sir William chambers book a treatise on the decorative part of civil architecture it's a book I would highly recommend to anyone with a serious academic interest in the classical orders but for Carpenters this type of approach to classical proportioning tends to make things ridiculously complicated after all we're always given a specific height to work with never a diameter I mean the columns for the portico you're building or eight feet tall or the ceiling height of the room you're trimming out is 9 feet tall and for the small details who wants to figure out the actual measurement 411 in 2/3 minutes for me a more practical approach can be found in William wares book the American Vignola first published in 1904 ware starts by pointing out that according to Vignola the entablature and columns here a fixed proportional relationship that's the same in all of the orders this fixed relationship is easy to miss since we're used to seeing a side-by-side comparison at the different orders it looks like this they're normally drawn so that they share the same base diameter the Tusken order on the left being 7 diameters tall working up to the Corinthian and composite orders on the right which are 10 diameters tall something about this representation always confused me the Tusken order was supposed to be strong and masculine and the corinthian in composite were always described as delicate and feminine you don't get that impression from this type of comparison instead you get the impression that there's an ascending height from one order to the next however when you view them all drawn to the same height you can easily see the dramatic difference in column diameter and it becomes obvious that the Tusken order has a much more robust form while the corinthian is more feminine but that's not all with all of the orders drawn to the same height you can appreciate that every entablature is equal to 1/4 the height of the column by itself that's a pretty simple proportional rule so let's look at a typical jobsite situation where we have to start with the height of the column not the diameter if you know how tall the column is simply divide its height by 4 to determine the height of the entablature the entablature is 1/4 the height of the column if you're starting with the overall height of the order then you have a total of 5 parts and the height of the entablature is equal to one-fifth the total height here's a simple example if the overall height is 120 inches dividing it by 5 gives you the height of the entablature 120 inches divided by 5 equals 24 inches this means the column I is 96 inches now that we know the column height it's easy to determine the columns diameter if we need to in this Tuscan example we know that the column is supposed to be seven diameters tall that's just another way of saying the columns diameter is 1/7 as wide as it is tall when we divide the column height of 96 by 7 we get a base diameter of about thirteen and eleven sixteenths if we were working with a Doric order the columns base diameters 1/8 its height and gives us a diameter of 12 inches 96 inches divided by 8 equals 12 inches another primary member that's often included in an order as a pedestal just like the entablature Vignola gave the pedestal a fixed relationship to the columns height making the pedestal one-third the height of the column in each order since the pedestal is one-third the height of the column and the entablature is one-quarter the height of the column neither of these simple divisions will work to help proportion both at the same time wears simple solution for proportioning an order with a pedestal is to simply divide the column height into twelve parts a number that's divisible by both 3 and 4 that makes the pedestal four parts and the entablature three parts when you put them all together you come up with a total of 19 parts three parts for the entablature twelve parts for the column and four parts for the pedestal if you're starting with the same total height of 120 inches start by dividing it by 19 to get the height of each part 120 inches divided by 19 equals 6 and 5/16 at three parts the entablature is just about 19 inches tall 12 parts of the column that had up to 75 and 3/4 of an inch and the four parts of the pedestal equal 24 and a quarter inches once you have the dimensions established for the principal members you can then find the diameter of the column in this Doric example the diameter would be nine and a half inches 75 and 3/4 inch column height divided by equals nine and a half inches where's book also includes plates for sending out all of the decorative details but unlike most authors he treats each element individually breaking each one down into smaller and smaller groups of equal parts for example once the height of the entablature is determined the first step is to break it down into an equal number of parts that corresponds with a number of diameters used for the columns height in this Doric example that means eight parts he gives two parts to the architrave and three parts to both the frieze and cornice next he breaks down the cornice by dividing its height into four equal parts giving one part each to the summation Corona noodles and bed Moulton this system of equal parts continues drilling down even further in order to find the dimensions of even the smallest detail the molding profiles if you ever need to go that far as I said already I'm a big fan of where's book the American vignola because his system works best for me but there are plenty of other historical pattern books and authors out there to choose from if you choose to venture out don't be surprised when you find that on every author's proportions alignment signals they all seem to have their own proportional rules based on what they think is ideal honestly there are no real proportional rules just guidelines it might help to think of them like a recipe every cookbook author has their own version of a traditional dish it's alright to make some adjustments here and there to suit your specific tastes or because of the ingredients you have to work with just be careful not to stray too far from the original recipe or you may end up with something that's unrecognizable from the original and difficult to digest [Music] you [Music]

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Length: 9min 25sec (565 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2018