Thread by @wrathofgnon

Perhaps the most eye-catching and the most beloved element of classical architecture is the column, and of the column, the capital. Interestingly it is also the part that has been most fruitfully adapted to local usages throughout the ages, all the way to our days. Let's explore.

The history of the column and its capital go way back to the dawn of civilization but lets start with the greeks. They created the basic three orders that we have built upon: the doric (the simplest), ionic (with the volutes, or scrolls), corinthian (with the acanthus leaves).

As the names implies, these three orders came from different areas of ancient Greece and were used locally. A sort of classical vernacular. The ionic order for example came from a people of seafarers, who were inspired by the Egyptians (who liked lotus flower decorated capitals).

In the 1st c. B.C. the Romans took these orders and invented two more: the Tuscan (simpler than the Doric), for rustic agrarian or utility buildings, and what we call the Composite Order, for the grand buildings of government: basically an Ionic and Corinthian order combined.

The Romans thus set the precedent to base a building’s order on its usage and location rather than its origin. A small but important innovation and the nudge that made it possible for the classical orders to go global.

The Renaissance rediscovered classical architecture, and Palladio rediscovered a cheap way to build them, but it was Vignola’s ”The Five Orders of Architecture” in 1532 that solidified the concept of a classical order. It became canonical, with over 500 ed. published so far!

In the 17th and 18th centuries, parallel to the classical orders a sort of subculture of orders developed, often called ”nonce orders”, exchanging some aspect of an established order for something new, like different animals, fruits, vegetables, heraldic symbols or even fossils.

Trends and fashions in general society carried over into architecture. The Victorian craze for collecting ferns, for example, resulted in this beautiful variant of the ionic order, with ferns instead of volutes. An elegant and logical variation that blended in harmoniously.

In 1789 the British architect George Dance invented the Ammonite Order, another ionic variant, with fossil ammonites, a rare but beloved innovation in an era where the natural world was being catalogued and put in order: the era of the enthusiastic gentleman collector.

A few architects decided to make the classical orders vernacular again, and invented purely local orders. Like the British order, a variant on the Roman composite order with royal symbols, and a winged lion and unicorn rampant, by James Adams, 1762.

The Americans exchanged some of the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order with the more American tobacco leaves, as in this ”Second American Order” by Philadelphia architect Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887).

Walter’s work was perhaps inspired by B. Henry Latrobe’s 1809 American Order, with magnolia flowers and leaves replacing the acanthus of the greek Corinthian order. Unfortunately all these were lost in the burning of the Capital in 1814, but we have a drawing, to be revived!

Benjamin Henry Latrobe also designed the famous Tobacco Capital Sent to Jefferson (executed by Francisco Iardella) in 1817. It can still be seen in model at Monticello, perhaps to be revived sometime in the future?

Maybe the last vernacular classical order to be designed was Edwin Lutyen's Dehli Order, the classical order for India, with details inspired by traditional Indian architecture and temple bells instead of the greek volutes. Here the elegant Durbar Hall, Rashtrapati Bhavan

So here is the point. To ensure the survival of these beautiful classical orders, perhaps it would be good to revive the vernacular, and let architects propose new orders suitable for their own cultures? Palmettos for Florida, Thistles for Scotland, Bamboo for Fukuoka, and so on.

If you teach art or architecture in school or at university, take your students out to draw a classical order capital in your own town, them ask them to modify it in the spirit of the ancient greeks, to make a local one, to maybe one day be picked up and adopted by their town?