Classical Order - Vignola's Orders

Vignola's Orders

Following the examples of Vitruvius and the five books of the Regole generali d'architettura by Sebastiano Serlio, published from 1537 onwards, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola produced an architecture rule book that was more practical than the previous two books, which were more philosophical in nature, his Cinque ordini di erchitettura (The Five Orders of Architecture ) from 1562; the book is considered "one of the most successful architectural textbooks ever written", despite having no text apart from the notes and the introduction. The book consisted simply of an introduction followed by 32 annotated plates, with views from the Pantheon illustrating the Corinthian order and the Theatre of Marcellus for the Doric order. Later editions had more illustrations. By 1700, it had been reprinted 15 times in Italian, and was translated in Dutch, English, French, German, Russian and Spanish.

Each period interpreted the orders in their own way. The architecture of every subsequent period of European architecture was based on the classical orders. In the later 18th century the rules of the Renaissance and the Baroque periods came to be disregarded, and the original use of the orders revived, based on first-hand study of the ruins of classical antiquity - often hailed as the 'correct' use of the orders.

In America, The American Builder's Companion, written in the early 19th century by the architect Asher Benjamin, influenced many builders in the eastern states, particularly those who developed what became known as the Federal style.

The break from the classical mode came first with the Gothic revival, then the development of modernism during the 19th century. The Bauhaus promoted pure functionalism, stripped of superfluous ornament, and that has become one of the defining characteristics of modern architecture. There are some exceptions. Postmodernism introduced an ironic use of the orders as a cultural reference, divorced from the strict rules of composition. On the other hand, a few practitioners e.g. Quinlan Terry still work in a traditional classical idiom.