Why are the columns of an Egyptian hypostyle hall so thick and so closely spaced?

Stone beams are weak in bending, so spans had to be short and the supporting columns thick and numerous

The Egyptians did not know mortar, so many columns were needed to hold the roof stones together by friction

Stone beams are weak in bending, so spans had to be short and the supporting columns thick and numerous

Each row of columns carried a series of true arches that needed heavy abutments, and these crowded the hall

The columns were purely symbolic plants and were not structural, the roof being carried by the outer walls alone

The Step Pyramid at Saqqara, generally regarded as the first large monument built of cut stone in Egypt, was designed for King Djoser by

Imhotep, the vizier and architect of the Third Dynasty

Senenmut, the steward and favourite official of Queen Hatshepsut

Iktinos, the architect of the Parthenon in Periclean Athens

Imhotep, the vizier and architect of the Third Dynasty

Anthemius of Tralles, the geometer who built Hagia Sophia

The slight swelling of a Greek column shaft towards its middle, called entasis, was introduced mainly to

correct the optical impression that a straight shaft looks thin or concave at mid-height

give the marble drums greater load capacity at mid-height, where the bending moment in the column is greatest

let rainwater run off the flutes more quickly and so protect the stone

match the diameter of the shaft to the width of the triglyphs of the frieze above

correct the optical impression that a straight shaft looks thin or concave at mid-height

A building on the Acropolis of Athens is an octastyle peripteral temple of the Doric order, with 17 columns along each flank, sculpted metopes outside and a continuous frieze running round the top of the cella wall inside the colonnade. It is the

Parthenon, built by Iktinos and Kallikrates with sculpture directed by Pheidias

Erechtheion, with an asymmetrical Ionic plan and the porch of the caryatids on its south side

Temple of Athena Nike, a small Ionic amphiprostyle temple on the bastion

Parthenon, built by Iktinos and Kallikrates with sculpture directed by Pheidias

Propylaia, the monumental gateway to the citadel designed by Mnesikles

Roman builders could roof the great halls of their baths and basilicas with groin vaults, which the Greeks never attempted, chiefly because the Romans had

a lime-and-pozzolana concrete that could be cast over timber centring into a monolithic vault

access to far larger marble quarries, which supplied lintels long enough to span the great halls in one piece

adopted the pointed arch, which exerts less thrust and so needs no thick supports

devised the flying buttress to carry the vault thrust over the aisle roofs

a lime-and-pozzolana concrete that could be cast over timber centring into a monolithic vault

Roman builders gave the Pantheon dome deep coffers and graded its aggregate from heavy at the base to lighter near the crown. The main purpose was to

reduce the weight of the dome, and so its thrust and the stresses in the supporting drum

improve the acoustics of the rotunda by breaking up the surface and reducing echo

reduce the weight of the dome, and so its thrust and the stresses in the supporting drum

let the dome be built without timber centring by locking its coffers in place as they were laid

form expansion gaps so that the concrete could crack harmlessly as it dried

A Roman building is elliptical in plan and free-standing, with tiers of seats carried on radiating vaults, stairs and vomitoria for rapid exit, and an arena at the centre. It is an

amphitheatre, like the Colosseum

theatre, like the Theatre of Marcellus

circus, like the Circus Maximus

basilica, like the Basilica Ulpia

In a Byzantine church, a pendentive is

a concave spherical triangle in each corner that carries a round dome over a square bay

a small arch thrown across each corner of the square bay to convert it into an octagonal base

a semicircular recess at the east end of the church, covered by a half-dome

a concave spherical triangle in each corner that carries a round dome over a square bay

a projecting stone bracket, or corbel, that carries the springing of an arch or a balcony

In a Gothic cathedral, the lateral thrust of the high nave vault reaches the ground by which path?

Vault cells to ribs, ribs to the pier heads, then across the aisle roof by flying buttresses to outer buttress piers and the foundation

Vault cells straight into a thick continuous clerestory wall and down to the foundation, as Romanesque churches resist the thrust of their barrel vaults

Vault to four great piers through pendentives, with semi-domes absorbing the thrust along the axis

Vault to a dense row of hypostyle columns that carry stone lintels down to the plinth

Vault cells to ribs, ribs to the pier heads, then across the aisle roof by flying buttresses to outer buttress piers and the foundation

Why did Gothic builders favour the pointed arch for vaulting the rectangular bays of a nave?

Arches of unequal span can be made to reach one crown height by varying their pitch, and a steep pointed arch thrusts outward less than a semicircular arch

A pointed arch exerts no horizontal thrust at all, so buttresses were needed only to resist wind pressure on the high walls and roofs

Arches of unequal span can be made to reach one crown height by varying their pitch, and a steep pointed arch thrusts outward less than a semicircular arch

It could be cut from single large stones without voussoirs, which removed the need for timber centring during construction

It allowed flat stone lintels over the windows, which were cheaper and stronger than arches of the same opening

Which of the following were distinctive contributions of Roman architecture?

Concrete of lime mortar, pozzolana and rubble, faced with brick or stone

Systematic use of the semicircular arch, barrel vault and groin vault as structural forms

Entasis and a curved stylobate to correct optical illusions in temple colonnades

Concrete of lime mortar, pozzolana and rubble, faced with brick or stone

Systematic use of the semicircular arch, barrel vault and groin vault as structural forms

The Ionic volute capital as a newly invented type of capital

Which of the following statements about Hagia Sophia are correct?

It was completed in the 530s for Justinian by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus

Its dome rests on pendentives over a square central bay and is extended lengthwise by semi-domes

Its first dome fell in an earthquake and was rebuilt in a higher form

It was completed in the 530s for Justinian by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus

It was designed by Sinan after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople

Its dome rests on pendentives over a square central bay and is extended lengthwise by semi-domes

Its first dome fell in an earthquake and was rebuilt in a higher form

Which of the following are optical refinements used in the Parthenon?

The columns lean slightly inward

The corner columns are thicker and set closer to their neighbours

The columns lean slightly inward

The stylobate is a perfectly flat plane so that horizontals look level

The corner columns are thicker and set closer to their neighbours

The shafts are exactly cylindrical, entasis being a Roman introduction

Which of the following belong to Gothic architecture?

The fan vault of English Perpendicular churches

The rose window set in the west front

The hypostyle hall with clerestory openings above the central columns

The fan vault of English Perpendicular churches

The pendentive carrying a dome over a square bay

The rose window set in the west front

The Classical and Medieval World: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Gothic Architecture

This chapter answers the first half of AR Part B1, Section B1.1, “World History of Architecture: Egyptian, Greco-Roman classical period, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque-Rococo”, and takes the story as far as the Gothic cathedral. It teaches each style as a structural idea tied to a building: the trabeated stone of Egypt and Greece, the orders and the optical refinements of the Parthenon, the Roman arch, vault, dome and concrete with their forums, basilicas, baths and amphitheatres, Vitruvius’s triad, the Byzantine dome on pendentives, and the Gothic skeleton of pointed arch, ribbed vault and flying buttress. The numericals are honest arithmetic: column heights in lower diameters, the share of the entablature, column and triglyph counts, and the geometry of the Pantheon.

1. Egyptian architecture: stone, mass and the trabeated system

Egyptian architecture grew along the Nile for three thousand years and was built to last for ever: tombs and temples were of stone, while palaces and houses, of sun-dried mud brick, have mostly perished. The structural system is trabeated (post and lintel): vertical supports carry horizontal stone beams. Stone is strong in compression but weak in bending, so a lintel cannot span far, and Egyptian interiors therefore have thick columns set close together. Walls are massive with a batter (a slight inward slope) and are crowned by a hollow cavetto cornice, with a rounded torus moulding on the corners; the surfaces carry painted relief and hieroglyphs.

Egyptian building types
Type	What it is	Standard example
Mastaba	Flat-topped rectangular tomb with sloping sides, in mud brick or stone	Early tombs at Saqqara and Giza
Step pyramid	Mastabas of diminishing size stacked in six steps; generally regarded as the first large monument of cut stone	King Djoser’s complex at Saqqara, by Imhotep (Third Dynasty)
True pyramid	Smooth sloping faces meeting at an apex; a royal tomb with a mortuary temple at its foot	Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure at Giza (Fourth Dynasty)
Rock-cut temple	Halls and sanctuary hewn into a cliff	Abu Simbel, of Ramesses II; Hatshepsut’s terraced temple at Deir el-Bahri, set against a cliff
Cult temple	A processional sequence of pylon, court, hypostyle hall and sanctuary	Karnak (Amun) and Luxor

A cult temple is a journey from light to dark and from public to sacred: an avenue of sphinxes; the pylon, a gateway between two tapering towers; an open columned court; the hypostyle hall, a hall whose roof rests on many columns; and at last the small, dim sanctuary, where the floor rises and the ceiling lowers. In the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, 134 columns stand in 16 rows, and the two central rows are taller so that stone-grilled clerestory windows can light the nave. The columns imitate plants (papyrus in bud or open, lotus, palm) or carry the face of Hathor; they are not fixed “orders”, since their proportions vary from building to building.

⚠️ A pyramid is a tomb, not a temple

The development runs mastaba, then step pyramid, then true pyramid, never the reverse. The pyramid itself is a tomb; the temple that serves it is a separate building at its foot. The Egyptian cult temple, with its pylon and hypostyle hall, is a different building type altogether, so do not mix the two sequences.

2. Greek architecture I: the three orders and the temple plan

Greek architecture, from the seventh century BC onward, supplied the vocabulary that every later classical style borrows. Its temples are post-and-lintel buildings of limestone and marble, laid dry with metal clamps, with no true arch. The unit of design is the order: a column (base, shaft and capital) together with the entablature it carries (architrave, frieze and cornice), all in fixed proportion to the column’s lower diameter. The Greeks evolved three orders.

The three Greek orders
Feature	Doric	Ionic	Corinthian
Character	Mainland Greece and the western colonies; sturdy, austere, “masculine”	Ionia (east Aegean coast) and Athens; slender and graceful	Grew out of the Ionic in the 5th century BC; the most ornate and slenderest
Base	None; the shaft stands directly on the stylobate	Moulded base	Moulded base, as the Ionic
Shaft	About 20 shallow flutes meeting at sharp edges (arrises)	24 flutes separated by flat fillets	24 flutes with fillets
Capital	Plain: round echinus under a square abacus	Two spiral volutes over an egg-and-dart echinus	A bell ringed by two tiers of acanthus leaves, with small volutes
Frieze	Alternating triglyphs and metopes	Continuous, often sculpted; dentils below the cornice	As the Ionic
Height in lower diameters (roughly, Greek)	About 4 to 6	About 9	About 10, sometimes a little more
Standard example	Parthenon, Athens	Erechtheion; Temple of Athena Nike	Choragic Monument of Lysicrates; Olympieion, Athens

A Greek temple is a house for the god’s statue, not a hall for worshippers. The cella (naos) holds the statue; the pronaos is the front porch and the opisthodomos the rear one; the peristyle is the colonnade around it, standing on the stylobate, the top step of the stepped base. The number of columns on the front names the type (tetrastyle 4, hexastyle 6, octastyle 8), and their arrangement names the plan.

Greek temple plan terms
Term	Meaning
In antis	Two columns set between the projecting ends of the side walls (antae)
Prostyle	A porch of free-standing columns at the front only
Amphiprostyle	Columned porches at front and back, none along the flanks
Peripteral	A single row of columns all round the cella
Dipteral	A double row of columns all round
Pseudo-dipteral	The inner row of the double colonnade omitted, leaving a wide walk
Tholos	A circular building ringed by columns

Counting a peristyle is a standard exercise. If n columns stand on each end and m on each flank, with the corner columns counted once, the total is 2(n + m) − 4. The Parthenon is octastyle with 17 columns on each flank: 2(8 + 17) − 4 = 46. A hexastyle peripteral temple with 13 on the flanks, such as the Hephaisteion in Athens, has 2(6 + 13) − 4 = 34. The subtraction removes the four corner columns that the two sums count twice.

3. Greek architecture II: refinements, the Acropolis and the agora

The Parthenon (built 447–432 BC by Iktinos and Kallikrates, with the sculpture directed by Pheidias) is the model of Doric refinement. Perfectly straight lines and exactly vertical columns look wrong to the eye at a distance: long horizontals seem to sag, straight shafts look thin and hollow in the middle, and columns seen against the bright sky look thinner than their neighbours. The Greeks therefore bent the geometry slightly so that the building would look perfect.

The optical refinements of the Parthenon
Refinement	What was done	Illusion corrected
Entasis	A slight convex swelling of the shaft	A straight shaft looks concave and weak at mid-height
Inward lean	Columns tilt slightly towards the cella	Vertical columns seem to splay outward at the top
Corner columns	Made thicker and set closer to their neighbours	Corner columns against the bright sky look thin and isolated
Curved stylobate	Platform and entablature rise slightly towards the middle of each side	A long level line appears to sag in the middle

The Acropolis (“high city”) of Athens is the sacred citadel rebuilt under Pericles after the Persian sack of 480 BC. Its buildings are placed freely and turned at angles so that they are seen in succession as one climbs the Panathenaic Way, not along one axis. The principal buildings are the Parthenon, a Doric peripteral temple of Athena with sculpted metopes and pediments and a continuous Ionic-type frieze round the top of the cella wall; the Propylaia, the monumental gateway by Mnesikles; the small Ionic temple of Athena Nike on the bastion; and the Erechtheion, an Ionic building with an asymmetrical plan fitted to a sloping site and a south porch whose supports are female figures (caryatids).

The agora is the opposite pole: the secular heart of the Greek city, an open space for assembly, market and law courts. It was fringed by stoas (long colonnaded halls with a solid back wall, sheltering shops and offices), the council house (bouleuterion), fountain houses and small shrines. Early agoras grew irregularly; in a gridded city such as Miletus, planned on the system attributed to Hippodamus of Miletus, the agora was a designed open rectangle at the centre of the grid. The Greek theatre used a hillside: a tiered theatron wrapped more than a semicircle round a circular orchestra, with the skene (stage building) behind; Epidaurus is the classic example.

⚠️ Do not mix the Acropolis buildings

The Parthenon is Doric (with an Ionic-type frieze inside the colonnade), while the Erechtheion and the temple of Athena Nike are Ionic. Entasis, inward lean and the curved stylobate are optical refinements: they were not introduced to carry more load. And the Acropolis is the religious, picturesque citadel, whereas the agora is the civic, commercial space below it.

4. Roman architecture I: arch, vault, dome and concrete

Roman architecture is the architecture of enclosed space. The Romans took the Greek orders as decoration, took the arch from the Etruscans, and added concrete; their buildings are shaped by vaults and domes rather than by temple-like colonnades. The Greek temple is judged from outside as sculpture, the Roman hall from inside as space.

The Roman structural repertoire
Element	Form	Note and example
Arch	Semicircular, of wedge-shaped voussoirs closed by a keystone	Spans wide openings with small stones but pushes sideways at its springing, so it needs abutments; aqueducts such as the Pont du Gard, bridges, triumphal arches
Barrel vault	An arch extended along its length	Needs continuous wall supports on both sides
Groin (cross) vault	Two barrel vaults crossing at right angles, meeting in sharp edges (groins)	Loads gather on four corner piers, so the sides can be opened for light; baths and the Basilica of Maxentius
Dome	A hemisphere resting on a circular drum or rotunda wall	The Pantheon, Rome
Apse	A semicircular end covered by a half-dome	Basilicas, baths and later churches

Roman concrete (opus caementicium) was lime mortar mixed with pozzolana, a volcanic ash from the Bay of Naples region, and rubble. It sets hard even in damp conditions and can be cast over timber centring into any shape. Walls were faced with brick or cut stone, which served as permanent formwork: opus latericium for brick and opus reticulatum for a diamond net of small blocks. It was cheap, quick and needed unskilled labour, and it turned a vault into a single monolithic shell, which is why Roman halls can be so large.

The Pantheon in Rome, rebuilt in Hadrian’s reign in the early second century AD, has an unreinforced concrete dome whose inner surface is a hemisphere about 43.3 m in diameter. It rests on a cylindrical drum whose height equals the dome’s radius, so the height from floor to crown equals the diameter and a sphere would just fit inside (for D = 43.3 m the drum is 43.3/2 = 21.65 m high). The dome is coffered, thins towards the crown and uses lighter aggregate higher up, all to reduce weight and thrust; the open oculus, about 8 m wide, is the main light source. A Greek-style porch of Corinthian columns, eight across the front, is attached to the round Roman rotunda.

⚠️ Roman thrust is resisted by mass

A semicircular arch pushes sideways. Roman builders met that thrust with thick walls, deep piers and abutments, whereas Gothic builders later guided it through flying buttresses. Also keep the correct forms apart: a barrel vault is a single arch extended, and a groin vault is two barrel vaults intersecting at right angles. A rib vault, which has stone ribs, is Gothic.

5. Roman architecture II: building types, the orders and Vitruvius

Roman building types
Type	Description	Example
Forum	Open rectangular public square ringed by colonnades, temples, a basilica and the senate house (curia), with a speaker’s platform (rostra)	Forum Romanum; Trajan’s Forum, designed by Apollodorus of Damascus
Basilica	Rectangular hall for law courts and business: tall central nave lit by a clerestory, flanking aisles, an apse for the magistrate’s tribunal; the model for the Christian church	Basilica Ulpia; Basilica of Maxentius
Thermae (baths)	A sequence of apodyterium (changing), frigidarium (cold), tepidarium (warm) and caldarium (hot, heated by a hypocaust: hot air under a floor on small brick piers and in wall flues), with a palaestra for exercise	Baths of Caracalla and of Diocletian
Amphitheatre	Elliptical and free-standing; seating on radiating vaults with stairs and vomitoria (exit passages); an arena in the middle	Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre), inaugurated AD 80
Theatre	Semicircular auditorium built on level ground over a vaulted substructure, joined to a high stage building (scaenae frons)	Theatre of Marcellus, Rome
Circus	A long narrow U-shaped course for chariot races	Circus Maximus
Housing	The insula, a multi-storey block of flats; the domus, a courtyard house with an atrium for the wealthy	Insulae and domus of Ostia and Pompeii

The Romans used five orders: Roman versions of the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, plus the plain unfluted Tuscan and the Composite (Ionic volutes over Corinthian acanthus). They used orders mainly as applied decoration (engaged columns and pilasters) on arcaded walls, an arch framed between columns. At the Colosseum, three arcaded storeys are superposed, from the ground Tuscan or Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, with Corinthian pilasters on the attic: lighter orders above heavier ones.

In the five-order canon codified by Renaissance writers such as Vignola, the column height in lower diameters is Tuscan 7, Doric 8, Ionic 9, Corinthian 10 and Composite 10, and the entablature is one quarter of the column height. Worked example: a Corinthian order with a lower diameter of 0.8 m has a column 10 × 0.8 = 8 m high, an entablature of 8/4 = 2 m, and a total order height of 10 m. For a Doric order of the same diameter the column is 6.4 m and the entablature 1.6 m, total 8 m.

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio wrote De architectura (the Ten Books on Architecture) in the first century BC and dedicated it to Augustus; it is the only major architectural treatise to survive from antiquity. His triad says what a building must have: firmitas (strength, sound construction), utilitas (utility, convenient use) and venustas (beauty). His six fundamental principles in Book I are ordinatio (order), dispositio (arrangement, drawn as plan, elevation and perspective), eurythmia (a pleasing appearance of proportion), symmetria (the proportion of parts to the whole by a common module), decor (propriety, fitness to purpose and place) and distributio (economy, the thrifty use of materials and site). He drew the proportions of temples from those of the human body.

⚠️ Utility is not economy

In the triad, utilitas means convenient use and venustas means beauty (Henry Wotton’s English version in 1624 gave “firmness, commodity and delight”). Economy is not in the triad; it is distributio, one of the six principles. The classical orders are also not Roman inventions: the Romans took over the three Greek orders and added only the Tuscan and Composite.

6. Byzantine architecture: the dome on pendentives

When Constantine made Byzantium (Constantinople) his capital in AD 330, the Eastern Roman Empire inherited Roman brick, vault and dome and added Eastern ornament and Christian ritual. The resulting Byzantine style favours the dome and centralised space: plans of a Greek cross (arms of equal length) or a domed basilica, plain brick exteriors, and interiors glittering with mosaic on a gold ground, coloured marble and carved basket-like capitals set under impost blocks.

The structural problem is that a dome is circular while the bay between four piers is square. The Byzantines solved it with the pendentive: each corner is filled with a concave spherical triangle that rises from the pier to a ring formed by the crowns of the four arches, so the dome sits on a circle touching all four arches and its load flows smoothly down to the piers. A Roman dome, in contrast, sat on a circular drum, which tied it to round rooms; the pendentive freed the dome to cover a square.

Ways of putting a dome on a plan
Device	Geometry	Associated with
Pendentive	Concave spherical triangle in each corner; gives a circular base on a square	Byzantine churches, Hagia Sophia, later Ottoman mosques
Squinch	A small arch or half-cone across each corner, turning a square into an octagon	Sasanian and early Islamic domes
Circular drum	The dome rests directly on a round wall	Roman Pantheon

Hagia Sophia (“Holy Wisdom”) in Constantinople, now Istanbul, was built in AD 532–537 for the Emperor Justinian by the geometers Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. It is a domed basilica: a dome about 31 m across on pendentives over four huge piers, extended along the axis by two semi-domes to make a vast oval nave, with a ring of windows at the base of the dome so that the dome seems to float. The first dome fell in the earthquake of 558 and was rebuilt higher under Isidore the Younger. After 1453 the Ottomans added minarets, and the building became a model for imperial mosques. Other key examples are San Vitale at Ravenna (an octagonal central plan) and St Mark’s in Venice (a Greek cross with five domes).

⚠️ Pendentive versus squinch

The pendentive is the Byzantine signature and is a spherical triangle continuous with the dome. The squinch is a small arch across the corner and makes an octagon. If a question says “curved triangular surface that carries a dome over a square”, the answer is pendentive. Remember also that Byzantine exteriors are plain and the richness is inside; the Gothic reverses this.

7. Gothic architecture: the stone skeleton

Gothic architecture began in the Île-de-France with the choir of the Abbey of Saint-Denis (about 1140–44, under Abbot Suger), matured in the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, Amiens and Notre-Dame de Paris (begun 1163), and spread to England, Germany, Spain and Italy until the Renaissance. It replaced the Romanesque style of round arches, barrel and groin vaults, thick walls and small windows.

Romanesque and Gothic compared
Feature	Romanesque	Gothic
Arch	Semicircular	Pointed
Vault	Barrel and groin	Ribbed (quadripartite or sexpartite; later fan)
Support	Thick continuous walls and heavy piers	Slender piers with flying buttresses outside
Windows	Small and few	Tall, traceried, filled with stained glass; rose windows
Effect	Low, solid and dim	Lofty, skeletal and bright

Pointed arch. It pushes more steeply downward than a semicircular arch of the same span, and arches of different spans can be made to rise to the same crown height by changing their pitch, so that rectangular bays can be vaulted at one level. Pointed arches had been used earlier elsewhere; the Gothic achievement is the system.
Ribbed vault. Diagonal and transverse stone ribs form a skeleton, and thin webs (cells) rest on them, so the weight is gathered onto the pier heads. Early Gothic used the quadripartite vault (four cells per bay) and the sexpartite vault (six cells over a double bay); the English Perpendicular style produced the fan vault.
Flying buttress. An exposed half-arch carries the thrust of the high vault across the aisle roof to a heavy buttress pier outside, usually weighted by a pinnacle that steers the line of thrust nearer the vertical.

The load path is therefore: vault cells, ribs, pier heads, flying buttress, buttress pier, foundation. The wall between the piers carries almost no load, so it dissolves into a screen of stone tracery and stained glass, culminating in the rose window. The usual plan is a Latin cross: a nave with side aisles, transepts crossing at the crossing, a choir with an ambulatory and radiating chapels (the chevet), and a west front with three portals, twin towers and a rose window. The nave wall rises in three storeys, arcade, triforium and clerestory. English Gothic is classed as Early English (lancet windows), Decorated (flowing tracery) and Perpendicular (vertical lines, fan vaults, as at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge); English cathedrals tend to be longer and lower with a square east end, French ones taller and more compact.

💡 The flying buttress as a bracing friend

A tall thin wall pushed outward by its roof is like a person leaning against a door that someone is pushing from inside. The flying buttress is a friend who braces the door from the side, while the pinnacle is the extra weight on the friend’s shoulders that makes the brace firmer. The stone skeleton does the work, so the wall between can be glass.

Key takeaways

Egyptian architecture is trabeated stone: weak lintels mean short spans, so thick close columns and hypostyle halls. The cult temple runs pylon, court, hypostyle hall, sanctuary; the tomb runs mastaba, step pyramid (Imhotep for Djoser), true pyramid.
An order is a column plus entablature in fixed proportion. Doric has no base, about 20 flutes and triglyph and metope; Ionic has volutes, 24 flutes and a continuous frieze; Corinthian has acanthus. The peristyle count is 2(n + m) − 4.
The Parthenon (Iktinos and Kallikrates) uses entasis, inward-leaning columns, thicker corner columns and a curved stylobate as optical refinements. The Acropolis is the picturesque religious citadel; the agora, fringed by stoas, is the civic and commercial centre.
Romans added the arch, barrel and groin vault, the dome and concrete of lime, pozzolana and rubble, and gave five orders. Their building types are the forum, basilica, baths, amphitheatre, theatre and circus. They resisted thrust by mass; the Pantheon’s interior fits a sphere.
Vitruvius gives the triad firmitas, utilitas, venustas and the six principles ordinatio, dispositio, eurythmia, symmetria, decor and distributio. Utility is not economy, and the triad is not the six.
Byzantine means the dome on pendentives (Hagia Sophia, 532–537, Anthemius and Isidore). Gothic means pointed arch plus ribbed vault plus flying buttress, which channel thrust to outer piers and free the wall for glass.

Practice questions (19)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

Why are the columns of an Egyptian hypostyle hall so thick and so closely spaced?
1. The Egyptians did not know mortar, so many columns were needed to hold the roof stones together by friction
2. Stone beams are weak in bending, so spans had to be short and the supporting columns thick and numerous
3. Each row of columns carried a series of true arches that needed heavy abutments, and these crowded the hall
4. The columns were purely symbolic plants and were not structural, the roof being carried by the outer walls alone
Show answer
Answer: B — Stone beams are weak in bending, so spans had to be short and the supporting columns thick and numerous
Stone resists compression well but bending poorly, so a lintel can safely bridge only a short span; the hall therefore becomes a dense forest of thick columns. The tempting claim about mortar is wrong, since mortar was used and was never the limit, and the Egyptians built no true arches. The columns were fully structural, whatever their plant symbolism.
The Step Pyramid at Saqqara, generally regarded as the first large monument built of cut stone in Egypt, was designed for King Djoser by
1. Senenmut, the steward and favourite official of Queen Hatshepsut
2. Iktinos, the architect of the Parthenon in Periclean Athens
3. Imhotep, the vizier and architect of the Third Dynasty
4. Anthemius of Tralles, the geometer who built Hagia Sophia
Show answer
Answer: C — Imhotep, the vizier and architect of the Third Dynasty
Imhotep, vizier to Djoser, is credited with the stepped pyramid of the Third Dynasty. Senenmut is the name linked with Hatshepsut’s terraced temple at Deir el-Bahri, a much later work of the Eighteenth Dynasty; Iktinos and Anthemius belong to Greece and Byzantium.
A temple column stands on a moulded base, its shaft carries 24 flutes separated by flat fillets, and its capital has two spiral volutes. The order is
1. Ionic
2. Doric
3. Corinthian
4. Tuscan
Show answer
Answer: A — Ionic
A base, 24 fluted channels with fillets and a volute capital identify the Ionic. The Corinthian shares the fluting but its capital is a bell of acanthus leaves; the Doric has no base, about 20 flutes meeting at sharp edges and a plain echinus-and-abacus capital; the Tuscan is the plain Roman order.
The slight swelling of a Greek column shaft towards its middle, called entasis, was introduced mainly to
1. give the marble drums greater load capacity at mid-height, where the bending moment in the column is greatest
2. let rainwater run off the flutes more quickly and so protect the stone
3. match the diameter of the shaft to the width of the triglyphs of the frieze above
4. correct the optical impression that a straight shaft looks thin or concave at mid-height
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Answer: D — correct the optical impression that a straight shaft looks thin or concave at mid-height
Entasis is an optical refinement: a straight-sided column looks hollow in the middle, so the shaft is given a barely perceptible convex curve. The tempting structural reason fails because a column in axial compression gains nothing from a swelling of a few millimetres; the bending-moment argument belongs to beams, not to a column carrying a vertical load.
A building on the Acropolis of Athens is an octastyle peripteral temple of the Doric order, with 17 columns along each flank, sculpted metopes outside and a continuous frieze running round the top of the cella wall inside the colonnade. It is the
1. Erechtheion, with an asymmetrical Ionic plan and the porch of the caryatids on its south side
2. Temple of Athena Nike, a small Ionic amphiprostyle temple on the bastion
3. Parthenon, built by Iktinos and Kallikrates with sculpture directed by Pheidias
4. Propylaia, the monumental gateway to the citadel designed by Mnesikles
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Answer: C — Parthenon, built by Iktinos and Kallikrates with sculpture directed by Pheidias
Eight columns on the end and 17 on the flank, Doric, with an inner continuous frieze, describe the Parthenon. The Erechtheion and the Nike temple are Ionic and small or irregular, and the Propylaia is a gateway, not a peripteral temple. The tempting mistake is the Erechtheion, because it also has a sculptural frieze and is famous, but it is Ionic and asymmetrical.
Roman builders could roof the great halls of their baths and basilicas with groin vaults, which the Greeks never attempted, chiefly because the Romans had
1. access to far larger marble quarries, which supplied lintels long enough to span the great halls in one piece
2. adopted the pointed arch, which exerts less thrust and so needs no thick supports
3. devised the flying buttress to carry the vault thrust over the aisle roofs
4. a lime-and-pozzolana concrete that could be cast over timber centring into a monolithic vault
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Answer: D — a lime-and-pozzolana concrete that could be cast over timber centring into a monolithic vault
Concrete, together with the arch, let the Romans cast a vault as a single shell over any plan. The Greeks were limited to stone lintels, whose span is small. The pointed arch and flying buttress are Gothic devices, not Roman ones, so the claims built on them, though plausible-sounding, are wrong.
Roman builders gave the Pantheon dome deep coffers and graded its aggregate from heavy at the base to lighter near the crown. The main purpose was to
1. improve the acoustics of the rotunda by breaking up the surface and reducing echo
2. reduce the weight of the dome, and so its thrust and the stresses in the supporting drum
3. let the dome be built without timber centring by locking its coffers in place as they were laid
4. form expansion gaps so that the concrete could crack harmlessly as it dried
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Answer: B — reduce the weight of the dome, and so its thrust and the stresses in the supporting drum
Every kilogram removed from the dome lowers the outward thrust at its base and the compressive and hoop stresses in the drum, which was the real limit of an unreinforced concrete dome. Coffering and lighter aggregate do exactly that. The Pantheon dome was cast over a great deal of timber centring, so the claim of building without centring is wrong, and acoustics were not the design aim.
A Roman building is elliptical in plan and free-standing, with tiers of seats carried on radiating vaults, stairs and vomitoria for rapid exit, and an arena at the centre. It is an
1. amphitheatre, like the Colosseum
2. theatre, like the Theatre of Marcellus
3. circus, like the Circus Maximus
4. basilica, like the Basilica Ulpia
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Answer: A — amphitheatre, like the Colosseum
An amphitheatre is a closed oval with an arena, as at the Colosseum. A Roman theatre is a semicircle joined to a stage building, the circus is a long U-shaped racecourse, and the basilica is a rectangular hall for law and business.
In a Byzantine church, a pendentive is
1. a small arch thrown across each corner of the square bay to convert it into an octagonal base
2. a semicircular recess at the east end of the church, covered by a half-dome
3. a concave spherical triangle in each corner that carries a round dome over a square bay
4. a projecting stone bracket, or corbel, that carries the springing of an arch or a balcony
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Answer: C — a concave spherical triangle in each corner that carries a round dome over a square bay
The pendentive is a spherical triangle that brings a round dome down to the four corner piers of a square bay. The small corner arch is the squinch, the half-domed east end is the apse and the projecting bracket is a corbel; the squinch is the most tempting wrong answer because it does the same job by a different geometry.
In a Gothic cathedral, the lateral thrust of the high nave vault reaches the ground by which path?
1. Vault cells straight into a thick continuous clerestory wall and down to the foundation, as Romanesque churches resist the thrust of their barrel vaults
2. Vault to four great piers through pendentives, with semi-domes absorbing the thrust along the axis
3. Vault to a dense row of hypostyle columns that carry stone lintels down to the plinth
4. Vault cells to ribs, ribs to the pier heads, then across the aisle roof by flying buttresses to outer buttress piers and the foundation
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Answer: D — Vault cells to ribs, ribs to the pier heads, then across the aisle roof by flying buttresses to outer buttress piers and the foundation
The Gothic system is a chain: cells, ribs, pier heads, flying buttresses, buttress piers, foundation, with pinnacles adding weight to steer the thrust line. Carrying the thrust in a thick continuous wall is the Romanesque method, which the Gothic chain made unnecessary and thereby freed the wall for glass.
Why did Gothic builders favour the pointed arch for vaulting the rectangular bays of a nave?
1. A pointed arch exerts no horizontal thrust at all, so buttresses were needed only to resist wind pressure on the high walls and roofs
2. Arches of unequal span can be made to reach one crown height by varying their pitch, and a steep pointed arch thrusts outward less than a semicircular arch
3. It could be cut from single large stones without voussoirs, which removed the need for timber centring during construction
4. It allowed flat stone lintels over the windows, which were cheaper and stronger than arches of the same opening
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Answer: B — Arches of unequal span can be made to reach one crown height by varying their pitch, and a steep pointed arch thrusts outward less than a semicircular arch
A semicircular arch’s height is fixed by its span, so rectangular bays give crowns at different levels. A pointed arch can be struck from different centres to reach one height over unequal spans, and its steeper profile sends the thrust more nearly downward. It still thrusts, so the claim of zero thrust is wrong.
A peripteral Greek temple has 6 columns on each short end and 13 on each long flank, the corner columns being counted on both the end and the flank. The total number of columns in its peristyle is ____.
Numerical answer — type the value.
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Answer: 34
Total = 2(n + m) − 4 = 2(6 + 13) − 4 = 38 − 4 = 34. Check by direct counting: the two ends give 6 + 6 = 12, and each flank adds its 13 − 2 = 11 non-corner columns, 22 in all; 12 + 22 = 34.
In the Renaissance canon of the Roman Doric order, the column is 8 lower diameters high and the entablature is one quarter of the column height. For a lower diameter of 0.75 m, the total height of column and entablature, in metres and correct to one decimal place, is ____.
Numerical answer — type the value.
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Answer: 7.5
Column = 8 × 0.75 = 6.0 m. Entablature = 6.0/4 = 1.5 m. Total = 6.0 + 1.5 = 7.5 m. As a check, the total is 1.25 times the column height: 1.25 × 6.0 = 7.5 m.
In a Greek Doric frieze, one triglyph stands over the axis of each column and one over the middle of each interval between adjacent columns, a metope filling the gap between each pair of neighbouring triglyphs. For an octastyle temple front, the number of metopes along the front is ____.
Numerical answer — type the value.
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Answer: 14
Eight columns give 8 triglyphs; the 8 − 1 = 7 intervals between them add 7 more, so there are 15 triglyphs. Metopes lie between consecutive triglyphs, so there are 15 − 1 = 14. This matches the 14 metopes on each end of the Parthenon. A common slip is to count 15, the triglyphs, or 16, twice the number of columns.
The interior of a rotunda is proportioned so that a sphere of diameter equal to its internal diameter just fits between the floor and the crown: the dome is a hemisphere resting on a cylindrical drum. If the internal diameter is 43.3 m, the height of the cylindrical drum below the springing of the dome, in metres and correct to two decimal places, is ____.
Numerical answer — type the value.
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Answer: 21.65
The sphere has diameter D = 43.3 m, so the floor-to-crown height is 43.3 m. The hemisphere has height D/2 = 21.65 m, so the drum is 43.3 − 21.65 = 21.65 m high. Equivalently the drum height equals the radius, 43.3/2 = 21.65 m. This is the proportion of the Pantheon.
Which of the following were distinctive contributions of Roman architecture?
1. Entasis and a curved stylobate to correct optical illusions in temple colonnades
2. Concrete of lime mortar, pozzolana and rubble, faced with brick or stone
3. Systematic use of the semicircular arch, barrel vault and groin vault as structural forms
4. The Ionic volute capital as a newly invented type of capital
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Answer: B — Concrete of lime mortar, pozzolana and rubble, faced with brick or stone; C — Systematic use of the semicircular arch, barrel vault and groin vault as structural forms
Concrete and systematic arcuated, vaulted construction are the Roman contributions. Entasis and the curved stylobate are Greek refinements, and the Ionic volute capital is Greek in origin; the Romans added the Tuscan and Composite orders instead.
Which of the following statements about Hagia Sophia are correct?
1. It was completed in the 530s for Justinian by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus
2. It was designed by Sinan after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople
3. Its dome rests on pendentives over a square central bay and is extended lengthwise by semi-domes
4. Its first dome fell in an earthquake and was rebuilt in a higher form
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Answer: A — It was completed in the 530s for Justinian by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus; C — Its dome rests on pendentives over a square central bay and is extended lengthwise by semi-domes; D — Its first dome fell in an earthquake and was rebuilt in a higher form
The statements about the 530s completion by Anthemius and Isidore, the pendentive dome with semi-domes, and the collapse and higher rebuilding are historically correct. Attributing it to Sinan is wrong: Sinan was a sixteenth-century Ottoman architect who built mosques inspired by Hagia Sophia, not the church itself.
Which of the following are optical refinements used in the Parthenon?
1. The columns lean slightly inward
2. The stylobate is a perfectly flat plane so that horizontals look level
3. The corner columns are thicker and set closer to their neighbours
4. The shafts are exactly cylindrical, entasis being a Roman introduction
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Answer: A — The columns lean slightly inward; C — The corner columns are thicker and set closer to their neighbours
The inward lean and the thicker, closer corner columns are genuine refinements. The stylobate and entablature are curved upward, so a perfectly flat stylobate is the opposite of the truth, and entasis is a Greek refinement, so crediting it to the Romans is also wrong.
Which of the following belong to Gothic architecture?
1. The hypostyle hall with clerestory openings above the central columns
2. The fan vault of English Perpendicular churches
3. The pendentive carrying a dome over a square bay
4. The rose window set in the west front
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Answer: B — The fan vault of English Perpendicular churches; D — The rose window set in the west front
The fan vault and the rose window are Gothic. The hypostyle hall with a raised central nave is Egyptian, and the pendentive is the Byzantine device for a dome over a square.