Intercolumniation

In architecture, intercolumniation is the spacing between columns in a colonnade, as measured at the bottom of their shafts.[1] In Classical, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture, intercolumniation was determined by a system devised by the first-century BC Roman architect Vitruvius.[2] Vitruvius compiled standard intercolumniations for the three classical Greek orders, expressed in terms of the column diameter,[1] twice the Vitruvian module, and he warned that when columns are placed three column-diameters or more apart, stone architraves break.[3]

Illustration from The Four Books of Architecture by Andrea Palladio, translation by Thomas Ware published in London, 1738

Standard intercolumniations

The standard intercolumniations are:[4]

Pycnostyle

One and a half diameters

Systyle

Two diameters

Eustyle

Two and a quarter diameters (and three diameters between middle columns front and rear); considered by Vitruvius to be the best proportion[5]

Diastyle

Three diameters

Araeostyle

Four or more diameters, requiring a wooden architrave rather than one of stone[6]

Araeosystyle

Alternating araeostyle and systyle

Vitruvius’s definitions seem to apply only to examples with which he was acquainted in Rome, or to Greek temples described by authors he had studied. In the earlier Doric temples the intercolumniation is sometimes less than one diameter, and it increases gradually as the style developed; thus in the Parthenon it is 11/4, in the Temple of Diana Propylaea at Eleusis, 11/4; and in the portico at Delos, 21/2. The intercolumniations of the columns of the Ionic Order are greater, averaging 2 diameters, but then the relative proportion of height to diameter in the column has to be taken into account, as also the width of the peristyle. Thus in the temple of Apollo Branchidae, where the columns are slender and over 10 diameters in height, the intercolumniation is 13/4, notwithstanding its late date, and in the Temple of Apollo Smintheus in Asia Minor, in which the peristyle is pseudodipteral, or double width, the intercolumniation is just over 11/2. Temples of the Corinthian Order follow the proportions of those of the Ionic Order.[6]

See also

• List of architecture topics
• Architectural glossary

References

1. "Intercolumniation". The Columbia Encyclopedia, sixth edition. Columbia University Press. Archived from the original on 2007-06-21. Retrieved 2007-06-03.
2. "Intercolumniation". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 2007-06-03.
3. Vitruvius, De architectura iii.3.4
4. "Intercolumniation". Webster's Dictionary, 1913. Archived from the original on 2007-01-13. Retrieved 2007-06-03.
5. Vitruvius, De architectura, iii.3.6.
6.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Intercolumniation". Encyclopædia Britannica. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 683–684.