Column
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. The term column applies especially to a large round support with a capital and a base or pedestal, which is made of stone, or appearing to be so. A small wooden or metal support is typically called a post. Supports with a rectangular or other non-round section are usually called piers. Throughout architectural history, especially in Classical and Rennaisance styles, the column has been central to building design.
For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces. Other compression members are often termed "columns" because of the similar stress conditions. Columns are frequently used to support beams or arches on which the upper parts of walls or ceilings rest. In architecture, "column" refers to such a structural element that also has certain proportional and decorative features. These columns are available in a broad selection of styles and designs in round tapered, round straight, or square shaft styles. A column might also be a decorative element not needed for structural purposes; many columns are engaged, that is to say form part of a wall. A long sequence of columns joined by an entablature is known as a colonnade. In Classical architecture, columns have historically had a few different "orders", notably the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, Composite, and Solomonic.
History
Antiquity
All significant Iron Age civilizations of the Near East and Mediterranean made some use of columns.Egyptian
In ancient Egyptian architecture as early as 2600 BC, the architect Imhotep made use of stone columns whose surface was carved to reflect the organic form of bundled reeds, like papyrus, lotus and palm. In later Egyptian architecture faceted cylinders were also common. Their form is thought to derive from archaic reed-built shrines. Carved from stone, the columns were highly decorated with carved and painted hieroglyphs, texts, ritual imagery and natural motifs. Egyptian columns are famously present in the Great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak, where 134 columns are lined up in sixteen rows, with some columns reaching heights of 24 metres.One of the most important type are the papyriform columns. The origin of these columns goes back to the 5th Dynasty. They are composed of lotus stems which are drawn together into a bundle decorated with bands: the capital, instead of opening out into the shape of a bellflower, swells out and then narrows again like a flower in bud. The base, which tapers to take the shape of a half-sphere like the stem of the lotus, has a continuously recurring decoration of stipules.
Greek and Roman
The Minoans used whole tree-trunks, placed on a stylobate and topped by a simple round pillow-like capital. These were then painted as in the most famous Minoan palace of Knossos. The Minoans employed columns to create large open-plan spaces, light-wells and as a focal point for religious rituals.These traditions were continued by the later Mycenaean civilization, particularly in the megaron or hall at the heart of their palaces. The importance of columns and their reference to palaces and therefore authority is evidenced in their use in heraldic motifs such as the famous lion-gate of Mycenae where two lions stand each side of a column. While these early wooden columns have not survived, their stone bases have and it is through these that we may see their use and arrangement in palace buildings.
The Egyptians, Persians, and other civilizations used columns for the practical purpose of holding up the roof inside a building, preferring outside walls to be decorated with reliefs or painting, but the Ancient Greeks, followed by the Romans, used them on the outside as well, and the extensive use of columns on the interior and exterior of buildings is one of the most characteristic features of classical architecture, in buildings like the Parthenon. The Greeks developed the classical orders of architecture, which are most easily distinguished by the form of the column and its various elements. Their Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders were expanded by the Romans to include the Tuscan and Composite orders.
Persian
Some of the most elaborate columns in the ancient world were those of the Persians, especially the massive stone columns erected in Persepolis. They included double-bull structures in their capitals. The Hall of Hundred Columns at Persepolis, measuring 70 × 70 metres, was built by the Achaemenid king Darius I. Many of the ancient Persian columns are still standing, particularly at sites such as Persepolis; some were originally around 20–24 metres tall, making them among the tallest columns of the ancient world. Tall columns with bull's head capitals were used for porticoes and to support the roofs of the hypostyle hall, partly inspired by the ancient Egyptian precedent. Since the columns carried timber beams rather than stone, they could be taller, slimmer and more widely spaced than Egyptian ones.South Asia
are capitals crowning columns or pilasters, which can be found in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, and usually combine Hellenistic and Indian elements. These capitals are typically dated to the first centuries of the Common Era, and constitute an important aspect of Greco-Buddhist art. Indo-Corinthian capitals display a design and foliage structure which is derived from the academic Corinthian capital developed in Greece. Its importation to India followed the road of Hellenistic expansion in the East in the centuries after the conquests of Alexander the Great. In particular the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, centered on Bactria, upheld the type at the doorstep of India, in such places as Ai-Khanoum until the end of the 2nd century BCE. In India, the design was often adapted, usually taking a more elongated form and sometimes being combined with scrolls, generally within the context of Buddhist stupas and temples.Middle Ages
Columns, or at least large structural exterior ones, became much less significant in the architecture of the Middle Ages. The classical forms were abandoned in both Byzantine and Romanesque architecture in favour of more flexible forms, with capitals often using various types of foliage decoration, and in the West scenes with figures carved in relief.During the Romanesque period, builders continued to reuse and imitate ancient Roman columns wherever possible; where new, the emphasis was on elegance and beauty, as illustrated by twisted columns. Often they were decorated with mosaics.
Renaissance and later styles
was keen to revive the classical vocabulary and styles, and the informed use and variation of the [|classical orders] remained fundamental to the training of architects throughout Baroque, Rococo and Neo-classical architecture.Structure
Early columns were constructed of stone, some out of a single piece of stone. Monolithic columns are among the heaviest stones used in architecture. Other stone columns are created out of multiple sections of stone, mortared or dry-fit together. In many classical sites, sectioned columns were carved with a centre hole or depression so that they could be pegged together, using stone or metal pins. The design of most classical columns incorporates entasis plus a reduction in diameter along the height of the column, so that the top is as little as 83% of the bottom diameter. This reduction mimics the parallax effects which the eye expects to see, and tends to make columns look taller and straighter than they are while entasis adds to that effect.There are flutes and fillets that run up the shaft of columns. The flute is the part of the column that is indented in with a semi circular shape. The fillet of the column is the part between each of the flutes on the Ionic order columns. The flute width changes on all tapered columns as it goes up the shaft and stays the same on all non tapered columns. This was done to the columns to add visual interest to them. The Ionic and the Corinthian are the only orders that have fillets and flutes. The Doric style has flutes but not fillets. Doric flutes are connected at a sharp point where the fillets are located on Ionic and Corinthian order columns.
Nomenclature
Most classical columns arise from a basis, or base, that rests on the stylobate, or foundation, except for those of the Doric order, which usually rest directly on the stylobate. The basis may consist of several elements, beginning with a wide, square slab known as a plinth. The simplest bases consist of the plinth alone, sometimes separated from the column by a convex circular cushion known as a torus. More elaborate bases include two toruses, separated by a concave section or channel known as a scotia or trochilus. Scotiae could also occur in pairs, separated by a convex section called an astragal, or bead, narrower than a torus. Sometimes these sections were accompanied by still narrower convex sections, known as annulets or fillets.At the top of the shaft is a capital, upon which the roof or other architectural elements rest. In the case of Doric columns, the capital usually consists of a round, tapering cushion, or echinus, supporting a square slab, known as an abax or abacus. Ionic capitals feature a pair of volutes, or scrolls, while Corinthian capitals are decorated with reliefs in the form of acanthus leaves. Either type of capital could be accompanied by the same moldings as the base. In the case of free-standing columns, the decorative elements atop the shaft are known as a finial.
Modern columns may be constructed out of steel, poured or precast concrete, or brick, left bare or clad in an architectural covering, or veneer. Used to support an arch, an impost, or pier, is the topmost member of a column. The bottom-most part of the arch, called the springing, rests on the impost.