Looking at Buildings

Styles & Traditions

Variants

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St Pancras Church, Burial vaults
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London, Grindlay's Bank (former)

CaryatidsGlossary Term and AtlantesGlossary Term take a human or part-human form. In the Ancient World it was thought that columns symbolised the human figure, and human forms sometimes did duty for columns instead. CaryatidsGlossary Term are female figures, AtlantesGlossary Term are male. The males are usually shown as bearded and muscular, straining to hold up the entablatureGlossary Term, the females usually in repose.

Herms or terms are simpler versions with an upward-tapering shaftGlossary Term finished off with a human torso. All of these are more often used in relief rather than free-standing, for example on doorways or fireplaces.

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Seaton Delaval Hall

BlockedGlossary Term columns have shafts intersected by square stone blocks, as if not all the stones had yet been carved. The form goes back to RenaissanceGlossary Term Italy, where it began as a kind of sophisticated joke. It is used decoratively, and also at entrances as an expression of strength and security.

Many architects have tried to invent new ordersGlossary Term. One of the few to catch on was the version of DoricGlossary Term or TuscanGlossary Term designed by Salomon de Brosse, a 16th-century French architect, which has a straight-sided shaftGlossary Term with the separate stones emphasized by grooves.

Variants of the CorinthianGlossary Term with little sculpted figures in the capitalGlossary Term were common in the Ancient world, and sometimes appear on British buildings.

The English architect Amon Wilds (1762-1833) made much use of a capitalGlossary Term rather like the IonicGlossary Term, but with volutesGlossary Term shaped like fossil ammonites - a pun on his own name.

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Terraced houses
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London, Admiralty Arch

Glossary

Term
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