Door case and small classical building

Drawings of a Classical Doorway No.1 Royal Crescent

Alexandra Kordella

Drawings of a Classical Doorway No.1 Royal Crescent

by Alexandra Kordela

CONTENTS List of illustrations Part 1 : Description Part 2 : Analysis of the origins of the doorway Sketches List of plates and notes Plates Bibliography

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: ‘Royal Crescent near completion’, [print] (Forsyth,2003,p.20).

Figure 2: ‘Parts of columns and entablature’,[diagram], (http://www.answers.com).

Figure 3: ‘Walk-Queen Square, the Circus and the Royal Crescent’, [print] ( Forsyth,2003,p134).

Figure 4: ‘Royal Crescent’,[photograph] by author.

Figure 5: ‘Tuscan and Doric column’, [print](Gibbs,1948, p.43).

Figure 6: ‘The architraves of each order’, [print](Gibbs,1948, p.20).

Part 1 : Description

The selected doorway is the one in No.1 house in the Royal Crescent in Bath.[Fig.1] The main entrance of the house is a portico which protrudes from the entrance faรงade. The portico comprises two Tuscan columns with piers attached to them, supporting a crowing pediment. The doorway is 2.87m high.

The columns are in decorative relation to the wall, thus they are attached to the wall with three quarters of the diameter projecting therefrom.

The columns have pilaster responds, attached immediately behind them which are of similar design to the columns. The pediment projects slightly and then recesses to align with the wall plane.

The columns are based on pedestals, which are plain and consist only from the die[1]. The base of the columns is composed by a square plinth, a torus and it is connected to the shaft with a fillet [Fig.2]. The columns have a smooth surface and the shaft has diminution and entasis[2]. The capital is composed by a square abacus, a quarter round echinus and the necking is separated from the shaft with an astragal. The columns support a deep horizontal entablature, plain in decoration, with no ornaments. The pediment is plain as well.

Figure 1: Royal Crescent near completion, No1 house Doorway can be seen from this angle.

Watercolour by T.Malton,(1969).

Figure 2: The parts of the column and entablature in Tuscan order.

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Part 2: Analysis of the origins of the doorway

Royal Crescent was built in 1767-75 by John Wood the Younger. It is a remarkable eighteenth century building. It is located in Bath at the end of Brock Street [Fig.3]. It is part of an urban design development started from John Wood the Eldest to revive Bath as a Roman city and to help the transition from the city centre to the suburbs and the rural life.[3] The selected doorway is in Brock Street, and it is the entrance of the first house of the Royal Crescent which has now been restored as a domestic museum by the Bath Preservation Trust.[4] Royal Crescent has giant order Ionic columns decorating the façade of the second and third floor [Fig.4]. However the selected doorway faces Brock Street and it is Tuscan order. Wood deliberately designed the houses in Brock Street with modest facades in order not to distract the attention while approaching the Royal crescent[5].

His intention was to give one the experience of a breathtaking surprise the moment one arrives at the end corner of Brock Street and outfaces the Royal crescent.[6] On these terms the choice of the Tuscan order for the entrance of No.1 house in the Royal Crescent is justified since Tuscan order is the plainest of the orders and thus the doorway it is keeping up with the modest scale of the rest of the entrances of Brock Street.

From Vitruvius we learn about the origins and the proportions of the Tuscan order[7]. According to him the Etruscans[8] had developed relations with the Greeks and they developed a pale reflection of their architecture. And when Romans conquered them, the Tuscan order passed to the Roman architecture. [9]

Figure 3: Walk-Queen Square, the Circus and the Royal Crescent.

However there are no – existent examples of this order in antiquity. It could be regarded as a plainer Doric[10]. In the middle of the 15th century, Leon Battista Alberti, described the orders partly with reference to Vitruvius and partly from his own observations of Roman remains[11]. And it was Sebastian Serlio, nearly, a century later after Alberti, who systematized the study of the orders and provided the first completed illustrated architectural grammar of the Renaissance. Later Andrea Palladio delineated the orders, he created his illustrations and that was the basis for the Palladian movement. Palladio believed the Doric and Tuscan orders were interchangeable.[12] Tuscan is the Italian variation of the Greek Doric.[13] Other writers upon the orders are Vignola, Scamozzi, Le Dorme, Le Scot, Coujon.

In all the illustrations the Tuscan order is represented first. That is because it was believed that preceded the Ionian and Doric order and secondly the orders are put in ascending decoration detailing order.

Figure 4: Royal Crescent

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Two very important characteristics of the classical architecture, that are present to the selected doorway are the diminuition the entasis. Both of them are part of a number of techniques that were used to refine the appearance of the monuments.

These techniques are best referred as optical refinements and the firs to notice them were Allason and Cockerell[14]. The optical refinements are not instantly perceivable. However, without them; our perception of the monuments would be completely different.

Diminution is the reduction of the diameter of the upper part of the column. As Gibbs (1948) describes, the column is diminished at the upper part by the 1/5 of the semidiameter of the lower part of the column[15]. In Cordingley pattern book we find that the diameter of the upper part of the column is equal with the 5/6 of the diameter of the lower part of the shaft of the column[16]. It has been observed that diminution was larger during the archaic period and it was reduced at the posterior Classical and Hellenic period monuments.[17] The word entasis derives from the Greek verb ‘εντεινω’ which means to stretch it. This entasis on the columns means that the profile of the shaft is a convex curve and has a slight outward swelling. It has been measured that the maximum width of the columns of the classical Greek temples is at the 2/5 of their height. However, the entasis never resulted in having wider shaft than the base of the column.

[18]

From all the above we come to the conclusion that although it is architecture of post and lintel, the lines of the monuments are not straight and vertical despite what they look like at first sight.

The proportional scheme for the design of the orders is variant. Tuscan order entablatures range between ¼ and 1/5 of the height, Palladio and Scarmozzi generally proportioned their entablatures in the ratio of the 1/5 , Vignola always used quarter.[19] In Gibbs’s pattern book the Tuscan and the Doric orders are represented one next to each other and it is easy to compare them [Fig.5].The Tuscan is very similar to the Doric but even more plain and rustic.

Figure 5: Tuscan in Comparion to the Dorick.

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SKETCHES, No.1 ROYAL CRESCENT DOORWAY

Elevation, watercolour & ink, Alexandra Kordella.

Measurements, pencil sketch, Alexandra Kordella

Perspective pencil sketch of the Pedestal, Alexandra Kordella

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Base,pedestal,watercolour & pencil, Alexandra Kordella.

Capital, pencil sketch, Alexandra Kordella.

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Capital , watercolour & pencil, Alexandra Kordella.

Pediment, watercolour & pencil, Alexandra Kordella

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Pencil & ink sketch of the capitals and the entaplature, Alexandra Kordella

Perspective pencil sketch of the doorway, Alexandra Kordella.

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LIST OF PLATES AND NOTES PLATE 1: Rules for establishing proportions of the columns, the entablature and the pediment. (a)Construction of the shaft of the column with diminution and entasis, scale 1:20. Diminution, according to Gibbs, is drawn if we divide the height of the column in three parts and the diameter of upper part of the column equals the diameter of the lower part of the column diminished by 1/5 of the semidiameter of the lower part from each side [20] [Fig.5]. Mpuras defines diminuition (M) as the ratio between the difference of the two diameters divided with the diameter of the lower part: M= (D-d)/D[21]. However, here the columns are drawn according to Cordingley who suggests that the upper part of the column is equal with the 5/6 of the diameter of the lower part[22].The curving of the profile (entasis) was designed by using a grid system subdividing the width to the columns and designing the parabola that gave the entasis.[23] (b)Construction of the pediment scale 1:20.

Gibbs and Cordingley describe the method to design the angle of slope of the pediment. A, is the middle of the width of the pediment. We design a circle with radius A.B. C is the point where the circle intersects with the centerline of the width of the pediment. Then using point C as the centre, we design a circle with radius C.B. The intersection D of the circle with the centreline of the width gives us the slope B.D. (c)Construction of the base and capital, scale 1:10.

Cordingley describes the capital of same width as the architrave and both are equal with the ½ of the width of the diameter of the lower part of the column. The frieze and the cornice are equal with the ž of the diameter respectively [Fig.6]. The diameter of the column at the smallest part a-top, being divided into four parts, one of them is the projection of the capital. The height and the projection of the cornice are equal.[24]

PLATE 2: Plan, scale 1:20

PLATE 3: Section and Elevation, scale 1:20.

Figure 6: The architraves of each order.

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Notes

[1] Although usually pedestals, when present, consist of three parts : cap,die,base (Cordingley ,1951, p.14.)

[13] Tavernor(1991),p.12.

[2] Optical refinements; common in the design of classical columns.

[15] Gibbs(1948), p.5.

[3] The other parts of this urban sequence are the Circus connected to Queens Square via Gay Street (Forsyth,2003,p.20).

[4] Handy and Lowndes(1984), p.71.

[5] Lowndes(1981),p.11.

[6] Forsyth(2003),p.142 [7] Vitruvius (2000), p.257.

[8] A race of the west-central Italy built a state called Erutria which is now near the modern Tuscan.

[9] Cordingley (1951), p.6.

[10] Cordingley (1951), p.6.

[11]He also added the Composite order to the already existing Ionic , Doric and Tuscan( Summerson 2004,p. 10).

[12] Boucher (2000),p.300.

[14] Mpuras(1999),p.218.

[16] Cordingley (1951), plate B. [17] Mpuras(1999),p.201.

[18] Mpuras (1999),p.202.

[19] Cordingley (1951), p.14.

[20] Gibbs (1948),p.5.

[21] Mpuras (1999),p.201.

[22] Cordingley(1951),plate A. [23] Mpuras(1999),p.200.

[24] Gibbs(1948),p.5.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Boucher, B. Nature and the Antique in the Work of Andrea Palladio.[e-journal] Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Sep., 2000), pp. 296-311.Available at <http://www.jstor.org.ezp1.bath.ac.uk/stable/ pdfplus/991645.pdf?acceptTC=truehttp://www. jstor.org.ezp1.bath.ac.uk/stable/pdfplus/991645. pdf?acceptTC=true> [Accessed 22 Nov.2012].

Cordingley, R.A. Normandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Parallel of the orders of Architecture, Greek, Roman and Renaissance.

6th ed, Alec Tiranti LTD, London, 1951.

Forsyth,M. Bath. Yale University Press,London,2003.

Gibbs, J, The rules for drawing the several parts of architecture. The English University Press LTD, London, 1948.

Handy and Lowndes. Bath Profile of a city. Redcliffe Press, Bristol, 1984.

Lowndes,W. The Royal Crescent in Bath . Redcliffe Press, Bristol, 1981.

Mpuras,C. Lessons of History of Architecture, Simmetria, Athens,1999.

Pevsner,N. The buildings of England: Cornwall . Penguin Books, London, 1951.

Tavernor,R. Palladio and Palladianism.

Thames and Hudson, London, 1991.

Summerson, J. The Classical Language of Architecture.Thames and Hudson, London,1980.

Vitruvius, Lefas,P. Vitruvii di Architectura, Plethron, 2nd ed,Athens,2000.

Rec or dof as mal l c l as s i c al bui l di ng: Maus ol eum

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