Atlas of Architectural Styles

Room I of XII

Classical

c. 600 BC – AD 400 · born in Greece, then Rome

The grammar of columns, beams and pediments that Greek temple builders set down and Rome carried across an empire. Almost every later style either borrows it or argues with it.

How to spot it from the street

  • Columns carry a straight beam, the entablature
  • A low triangular pediment over the front
  • Mouldings run in horizontal bands
  • Strict symmetry about the door
Enter the Classical room
Plaster cast of a classical façade

Move the lamp with your pointer · point at a detail to read its label · ← → to change style

Four questions for any façade

  1. What holds it up? Thick walls (Romanesque), buttresses (Gothic), columns and beams (Classical), a hidden frame (Modernism) or a frame on show (High-Tech)?
  2. What shape are the arches? Round, pointed, curved like a plant, or none at all?
  3. Where is the ornament, and what is it? Acanthus and pediments, flowers and whiplashes, zigzags and sunbursts, board marks in raw concrete, or nothing?
  4. Is it calm or in motion? Strict symmetry (Renaissance, Neoclassicism), swelling toward the centre (Baroque), or broken on purpose (Postmodernism)?

The rooms

Plaster cast of a Classical façade IClassicalc. 600 BC – AD 400 Plaster cast of a Romanesque façade IIRomanesquec. 1000 – 1200 Plaster cast of a Gothic façade IIIGothicc. 1140 – 1520 Plaster cast of a Renaissance façade IVRenaissancec. 1400 – 1600 Plaster cast of a Baroque façade VBaroquec. 1600 – 1750 Plaster cast of a Neoclassicism façade VINeoclassicismc. 1750 – 1850 Plaster cast of a Art Nouveau façade VIIArt Nouveauc. 1890 – 1910 Plaster cast of a Art Deco façade VIIIArt Decoc. 1910 – 1940 Plaster cast of a Modernism façade IXModernismc. 1920 – 1970 Plaster cast of a Brutalism façade XBrutalismc. 1950 – 1980 Plaster cast of a Postmodernism façade XIPostmodernismc. 1965 – 1995 Plaster cast of a High-Tech façade XIIHigh-Techc. 1970 – 2000s