Classical Architectural Design And History: The Entablature

Classical architecture is built on principles of balance, proportion, and structure, and few elements embody these ideals as clearly as the entablature. The entablature joins the columns to the roof and the rest of a building’s structure, while also helping to establish the character and style of the building. It appears like a horizontal band resting on columns or on a wall, divided into three clear parts: the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice. The architrave is a meant to represent a structural beam carried by the columns, the frieze is a sometimes empath space above that where the ends of secondary beams might rest, and the cornice a projecting molding that casts deep shadows and protects the architecture below from rain. Variations of the entablature across the classical orders, from the simplicity of the Doric to the intricacy of the Corinthian, reveal how small changes in these components can dramatically affect the impression of a building’s design. The entablature, through its balanced proportions and distinctive detailing across the Orders, not only unifies the structural elements of a design but also contributes harmony, ornamentation, and rich cultural meaning to classical architectural designs.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR THE CLASSICAL ENTABLATURE

The history of the entablature reflects the evolution of classical architecture from Northern Africa to ancient Greece through Rome and into the Renaissance. When you build with columns, as the ancients enjoyed doing, a horizontal beam is needed to tie the columns together, and to support the ceiling and roof.  Essentially all world cultures have built this way at some point.  Many have taken what would have been simple wooden forms at first, and made them into elaborate and highly codified forms.  The Greeks did the work of this codification as their main building material switched to stone from wood.  They took ideas from earlier precedents in Egyptian and Minoan architecture, and formalized it beginning with the Greek Doric Order in the 7th century BC, followed by the Ionic in the 6th century BC, and the Corinthian in the 5th century BC. The Doric order was the dominant form for essentially all Greek temples, establishing the entablature as a defining visual element that gave heft and special detail to sacred buildings. Through the Hellenistic period, refinement in decorative carving increased, particularly in the frieze and cornice, adding complexity and depth. The Romans later expanded these ideas, further codifying a unique entablature for each order, and applying those orders to monumental civic buildings enriched with elaborate ornamentation and inscriptions that honored rulers, deities, and public ideals. One Roman Architect, Vitruvius wrote down a set of governing rules for constructing each of the orders and their relative proportions.  Despite the fall of the Roman Empire, his writings somehow survived for centuries forgotten in a monastery. During the Renaissance, Vitruvius’s work was uncovered, and it inspired great designers such as Alberti and Palladio to revive and champion the use of the classical orders in architecture, bringing the five orders—Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite into the modern world from antiquity. As it’s use became codified once again, the entablature became an easily recognizable sign of a classical building  in Western architecture, The orders continued to be used in buildings as part of trends in design such as like Neoclassicism, The city Beautiful Movement, the Greek Revival and even Post Modernism, where it continues to represent harmony, proportion, and enduring cultural identity.

Entablature of the Academy of Athens, Greece