How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

The frieze is a vertical surface, composed alternately of triglyphs and metopes. The triglyphs, so called because they are divided into three vertical channels, represent the ends of the primitive longitudinal sills of the cella roof; and a recollection of the woodworker’s craft was still preserved in the chamfer or hollow of their outer edges. The function of the triglyphs was to support the cornice. Generally they were set above and between the columns, but at each end of the entablature one adjoins the corner, thereby increasing the effect of stability.

The space between the triglyphs, called the metope, was originally left open, except for a wooden shutter to keep out birds. But in the most elaborate examples of later date the metope was decorated with sculpture in high relief. Those of the Parthenon contained groups, representing fights with Centaurs, Amazons, and Trojans.

Above the frieze was the cornice, which, as a protection from the drip of the roof, projected to a distance, about one-third of the diameter of a column. Its chief members were a vertical band, known as the corona, and an under-part, the soffit. The latter sloped down under the corona at about the same angle as the slope of the roof, and was decorated above each triglyph and metope with a mutule or square block, studded with eighteen guttae, or drops, a device that recalls the method of making fast the ends of the rafters with wooden pegs.

The cornice was carried up the two sloping edges of the roof, but here distinguished by an additional feature, the cymatium or gutter. The triangle or gable thus formed by the three cornices was called the pediment. It was embellished at the top and ends with small pedestals, acroteria, on which stood figures or conventional ornaments.

In a Doric temple the corona, on the sides of the building was without a cymatium, but studded instead with ante-fixae, ornaments of terra-cotta or marble, placed opposite the end of each tile-ridge of the roof. The latter, as we have already noted, was covered with tiles of marble or terra-cotta, and finished at the top with ridge-tiles.

The mere reading of these details is dry enough. They should be read with an eye on the examples illustrated but also with a mind constantly alert to think out the function and appropriateness of each feature. For the principle of Hellenic construction was that every member should perform a special function. The architect’s logic would not permit him, as we say, to send a boy on a man’s errand or waste a man by employing him at boy’s work, still less to confuse the responsibility for the function between two or more members. Accordingly, the student who is reading intelligently will assure himself at each step as to what particular responsibility was laid upon each member and how appropriately it was fitted to its function.

Ionic Order.—From the grandiose simplicity of the Doric order we pass to the slenderer and more graceful and decorated order of the Ionic. It is almost like passing from a masculine to a feminine type: from a reflection of the severe discipline of the old Dorian, as perpetuated by the Spartans, to the more pleasure-loving and elegant life of the wealthy Ionians; from the grave influence of the Olympian Zeus, chief god of the Dorians, to the grace of the youthful Apollo and Artemis, beloved of the Ionians.

For the Ionic order, as the name implies, was developed by the Asiatic Hellenes whose migration from Armenia has been already noted. From them the Greeks of Europe borrowed it. Among the earliest known examples are a Temple of Apollo at Naucratis, in Egypt, and the archaic Temple of Artemis, at Ephesus, both belonging to about 560 B.C. The remains of the latter are in the British Museum. They include two capitals, inscribed with the name of Crœsus, who is known to have contributed to the temple.

As in the Doric order, the Ionic temple rested on a stylobate of three steps, but the column is also provided with a base. The latter was usually composed of two tori, of semi-circular profile, separated by a concave moulding or scotia. Sometimes, as in the Erechtheion at Athens, the base stood upon a square, flat base-block, or plinth. Frequently the tori were embellished with horizontal flutings or the interlacing wave-lines, called guilloche.

The Ionic shaft was proportionately higher than the Doric, being from 8 to 10 diameters in height as compared with the 4⅓ to 7 of the Doric. Consequently, the entasis was less. The intercolumniation was sometimes as much as two diameters. The shaft was incised with twenty-four narrow flutings, separated by flat-edged fillets.