Doric order

Doric order,

earliest of the orders of architecture developed by the Greeks and the one that they employed for most buildings. It is generally believed that the column and its capital derive from an earlier architecture in wood. The cornice details, which have a resemblance to carpentry forms, have also led to the theory of its origin in wooden forms. The type had arrived at a definite form in the 7th cent. B.C., but further improvements produced the perfected order of the 5th cent. B.C. as it appeared in the ParthenonParthenon
[Gr.,=the virgin's place], temple sacred to Athena, on the acropolis at Athens. Built under Pericles between 447 B.C. and 432 B.C., it is the culminating masterpiece of Greek architecture. Ictinus and Callicrates were the architects and Phidias supervised the sculpture.
..... Click the link for more information. and the Propylaea at Athens (see under propylaeumpropylaeum
, in Greek architecture, a monumental entrance to a sacred enclosure, group of buildings, or citadel. A roofed passage terminated by a row of columns at each end formed the usual type. Known examples include those at Athens, Olympia, Eleusis, and Priene.
..... Click the link for more information. ). It continued to be used by the Greeks until about the 2d cent. B.C. The Greek Doric column has no base. Its massive shaft, generally treated with 20 flutes, terminates in a simple capitalcapital,
in architecture, the crowning member of a column, pilaster, or pier. It acts as the bearing member beneath the lintel or arch supported by the shaft and has a spreading contour appropriate to its function.
..... Click the link for more information. composed of a group of annulets, a projecting curved molding called the echinus, and a square slab or abacus at the top. The entablature, which is generally about one third the column height, consists of a plain architrave, a frieze ornamented with channeled triglyphs between which are square spaces or metopes sometimes used for sculpture, and a cornice. The cornice has projecting blocks or mutules in its exposed lower surface or soffit, above which is a plain vertical face or corona, finished by a group of crowning moldings. The proportions, heavy in the earliest Doric columns, became more slender in the perfected type, the entasis became less sharp, and the echinus projection was diminished. The Roman Doric, while derived from the Greek, was probably also influenced by a simple and slender column developed by the Etruscans. It was infrequently used, but examples are seen in the Colosseum and the theater of Marcellus. The column differs from the Greek in its addition of a base and in changes in the capital profile. The 16th-century Italians established as a Tuscan order a form of simplified Doric in which the column had a simpler base and was unfluted, while both capital and entablature were without adornments. For the other Greek orders see Ionic orderIonic order
, one of the early orders of architecture. The spreading scroll-shaped capital is the distinctive feature of the Ionic order; it was primarily a product of Asia Minor, where early embryonic forms of this capital have been found.
..... Click the link for more information. and Corinthian orderCorinthian order,
most ornate of the classic orders of architecture. It was also the latest, not arriving at full development until the middle of the 4th cent. B.C. The oldest known example, however, is found in the temple of Apollo at Bassae (c.420 B.C.).
..... Click the link for more information. . See also orders of architectureorders of architecture.
In classical tyles of architecture the various columnar types fall, in general, into the five so-called classical orders, which are named Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite.
..... Click the link for more information. .

Doric order

The first and simplest of the orders, developed by the Dorian Greeks, consisting of relatively short shafts with flutes meeting with a sharp arris, simple undecorated capital, a square abacus, and no base. The entablature consists of a plain architrave, a frieze of triglyphs and metopes, and a cornice. The corona contained mutules in the soffit.

Doric Order

one of the three principal Greek architectural orders. It developed in the Dorian region of ancient Greece in the period in which stone began to be used in the construction of temples and other public buildings. The Doric order was used as early as 600-590 B.C. in the first stone buildings on mainland Greece and in the Dorian colonies, for example, the Temple of Artemis, built at the beginning of the sixth century B.C. in Kerkira. The Doric order, the most severe and massive of the architectural orders, became the most important element of architectural composition in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. and the main vehicle of artistic expressiveness in the architecture of the late archaic and classical periods.

Doric order

Doric order:a, Greek; b, Roman In Classical architecture and derivatives, the column and entablature developed

Doric order

Doric order

Doric order

Doric order,

Doric order

Doric Order

Doric order

Doric order

Synonyms for Doric order

noun the oldest and simplest of the Greek orders and the only one that normally has no base

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