Portico
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A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.
Porticos are sometimes topped with
A pronaos (
Types
The different variants of porticos are named by the number of columns they have. The "style" suffix comes from the Greek στῦλος, "column".[1] In Greek and Roman architecture, the pronaos of a temple is typically topped with a pediment.[2]
Tetrastyle
The tetrastyle has four columns; it was commonly employed by the Greeks and the Etruscans for small structures such as public buildings and amphiprostyles.
The
The North Portico of the White House is perhaps the most notable four-columned portico in the United States.
Hexastyle
Hexastyle buildings had six columns and were the standard
Greek hexastyle
Some well-known examples of classical Doric hexastyle
- The group at Paestum comprising the Temple of Hera (c. 550 BCE), the Temple of Apollo (c. 450 BCE), the first Temple of Athena ("Basilica") (c. 500 BCE) and the second Temple of Hera (460–440 BCE)
- The Temple of Aphaea at Aeginac. 495 BCE
- Temple E at Selinus(465–450 BCE) dedicated to Hera
- The Temple of Zeus at Olympia, now a ruin
- Temple F or the so-called "Agrigentum (c. 430 BCE), one of the best-preserved classical Greek temples, retaining almost all of its peristyle and entablature
- The "unfinished temple" at Segesta (c. 430 BCE)
- The Temple of Hephaestus below the Acropolis at Athens, long known as the "Theseum" (449–444 BCE), also one of the most intact Greek temples surviving from antiquity
- The Temple of Sunium (c. 449 BCE)[3]
Hexastyle was also applied to
Roman hexastyle
With the colonization by the Greeks of
Octastyle
Octastyle buildings had eight columns; they were considerably rarer than the hexastyle ones in the classical Greek architectural canon. The best-known octastyle buildings surviving from antiquity are the Parthenon in Athens, built during the Age of Pericles (450–430 BCE), and the Pantheon in Rome (125 CE). The destroyed Temple of Divus Augustus in Rome, the centre of the Augustan cult, is shown on Roman coins of the 2nd century CE as having been built in octastyle.
Decastyle
The decastyle has ten columns; as in the temple of Apollo Didymaeus at Miletus, and the portico of University College London.[1]
The only known Roman decastyle portico is on the Temple of Venus and Roma, built by Hadrian in about 130 CE.[4]
Gallery
-
Maison Carrée (Nîmes, France)
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Indian portico of the Sanchi Temple 17 (Sanchi, India)
-
)
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Baroque porticos of the Louvre Colonnade (Paris)
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Louis XVI portico of the Théâtre de la reine, part of the Petit Trianon (France)
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Neoclassical portico of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur (Paris)
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Romanian Revival portico of the Ștefan Lilovici House (Bucharest)
See also
- Classical architecture – Architectural style, inspired by classical Greco-Roman architectural principles
- Cloister – Open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries
- Gatehouse – Entry control building
- Gate tower – Fortified tower at a major gateway
- Hypostyle – Hall with a roof supported by columns
- Loggia – Covered exterior gallery, one side open
- Outline of classical architecture – Overview of and topical guide to classical architecture
- Portal (architecture) – Access opening in a wall of a structure
- Porte-cochère – Roofed shelter outside a doorway
- Stoa – Covered walkway in ancient Greece
- Veranda – Roofed, open-air hallway or porch
Citations
- ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 910.
- ISBN 9781134676620.
- ^ W. Burkert, Greek Religion (1987)
- ^ Sturgis, Russell (1901). "Decastyle". A Dictionary of Architecture and Building: Biographical, Historical and Descriptive. Vol. 1. Macmillan. p. 755.
- ^ Caird, Joe (16 January 2009). "Bologna city guide: top five sights". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2022-01-12. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
General and cited references
- "Greek architecture". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1968.
- Stierlin, Henri (2004). ISBN 3-8228-1225-0.
- Stierlin, Henri (2002). Silvia Kinkle (ed.). The Roman Empire: From the Etruscans to the Decline of the Roman Empire. Cologne: ISBN 3-8228-1778-3.