A porte-cochère ( / ˌ p ɔːr t k oʊ ˈ ʃ ɛ r / ; French: [pɔʁt.kɔ.ʃɛʁ] ; lit. ' coach gateway ' ; pl. porte-cochères or portes-cochères ) is a doorway to a building or courtyard , "often very grand," through which vehicles can enter from the street or a covered porch -like structure at a main or secondary entrance to a building through which originally a horse and carriage and today a motor vehicle can pass to provide arriving and departing occupants protection from the elements.
38-456: Portes-cochères are still found on such structures as major public buildings and hotels, providing covered access for visitors and guests arriving by motorized transport. A porte-cochère, a structure for vehicle passage, is to be distinguished from a portico , a columned porch or entry for human, rather than vehicular, traffic. The porte-cochère was a feature of many late 18th- and 19th-century mansions and public buildings. A well-known example
76-654: A Greek and Roman temple is typically topped with a pediment. The different variants of porticos are named by the number of columns they have. The "style" suffix comes from the Greek στῦλος , "column". In Greek and Roman architecture, the pronaos of a temple is typically topped with a pediment . The tetrastyle has four columns; it was commonly employed by the Greeks and the Etruscans for small structures such as public buildings and amphiprostyles . The Romans favoured
114-680: A ring. Crown moldings soften transitions between frieze and cornice and emphasize the upper edge of the abacus , which is the upper part of the capital. Roman Doric columns also have moldings at their bases and stand on low square pads or are even raised on plinths . In the Roman Doric mode, columns are not usually fluted; indeed, fluting is rare. Since the Romans did not insist on a triglyph covered corner, now both columns and triglyphs could be arranged equidistantly again and centered together. The architrave corner needed to be left "blank", which
152-549: A triglyph form the corner, and filled it with a half ( demi -) metope, allowing triglyphs centered over columns ( illustration, right, V. ). There are many theories as to the origins of the Doric order in temples. The term Doric is believed to have originated from the Greek-speaking Dorian tribes. One belief is that the Doric order is the result of early wood prototypes of previous temples. With no hard proof and
190-587: Is at Buckingham Palace in London . A portico at the White House in Washington, D.C. is often confused with a porte-cochère, where a raised vehicle ramp gives an architectural portico the functionality of the latter. Today portes-cochères are found at both elaborate private homes and such public buildings as churches, hotels, health facilities, and schools. Portes-cochère differ from carports in that
228-449: Is illustrated at Vitruvian module . According to Vitruvius, the height of Doric columns is six or seven times the diameter at the base. This gives the Doric columns a shorter, thicker look than Ionic columns, which have 8:1 proportions. It is suggested that these proportions give the Doric columns a masculine appearance, whereas the more slender Ionic columns appear to represent a more feminine look. This sense of masculinity and femininity
266-515: Is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian . The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of the columns . Originating in the western Doric region of Greece, it is the earliest and, in its essence, the simplest of the orders, though still with complex details in
304-681: Is sometimes referred to as a half, or demi- , metope ( illustration, V. , in Spacing the Columns above ). The Roman architect Vitruvius , following contemporary practice, outlined in his treatise the procedure for laying out constructions based on a module, which he took to be one half a column's diameter, taken at the base. An illustration of Andrea Palladio 's Doric order, as it was laid out, with modules identified, by Isaac Ware, in The Four Books of Palladio's Architecture (London, 1738)
342-765: Is the best-preserved Roman hexastyle temple surviving from antiquity . Octastyle buildings had eight columns; they were considerably rarer than the hexastyle ones in the classical Greek architectural canon . The best-known octastyle buildings surviving from antiquity are the Parthenon in Athens , built during the Age of Pericles (450–430 BCE), and the Pantheon in Rome (125 CE). The destroyed Temple of Divus Augustus in Rome,
380-448: Is the inner area of the portico of a Greek or Roman temple , situated between the portico's colonnade or walls and the entrance to the cella , or shrine. Roman temples commonly had an open pronaos, usually with only columns and no walls, and the pronaos could be as long as the cella . The word pronaos ( πρόναος ) is Greek for "before a temple". In Latin , a pronaos is also referred to as an anticum or prodomus . The pronaos of
418-668: The Royal Hospital Chelsea (1682 onwards, by Christopher Wren ). The first engraved illustrations of the Greek Doric order dated to the mid-18th century. Its appearance in the new phase of Classicism brought with it new connotations of high-minded primitive simplicity, seriousness of purpose, noble sobriety. In Germany it suggested a contrast with the French, and in the United States republican virtues. In
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#1732790348153456-570: The Tuscan order , elaborated for nationalistic reasons by Italian Renaissance writers, which is in effect a simplified Doric, with un-fluted columns and a simpler entablature with no triglyphs or guttae. The Doric order was much used in Greek Revival architecture from the 18th century onwards; often earlier Greek versions were used, with wider columns and no bases to them. The ancient architect and architectural historian Vitruvius associates
494-468: The White House is perhaps the most notable four-columned portico in the United States. Hexastyle buildings had six columns and were the standard façade in canonical Greek Doric architecture between the archaic period 600–550 BCE up to the Age of Pericles 450–430 BCE. Some well-known examples of classical Doric hexastyle Greek temples : Hexastyle was also applied to Ionic temples, such as
532-435: The entablature above. The Greek Doric column was fluted , and had no base, dropping straight into the stylobate or platform on which the temple or other building stood. The capital was a simple circular form, with some mouldings, under a square cushion that is very wide in early versions, but later more restrained. Above a plain architrave , the complexity comes in the frieze , where the two features originally unique to
570-465: The Delians reassigned the temple to the island of Poros . It is "hexastyle", with six columns across the pedimented end and thirteen along each long face. All the columns are centered under a triglyph in the frieze , except for the corner columns. The plain, unfluted shafts on the columns stand directly on the platform (the stylobate ), without bases. The recessed "necking" in the nature of fluting at
608-552: The Doric with masculine proportions (the Ionic representing the feminine). It is also normally the cheapest of the orders to use. When the three orders are superposed , it is usual for the Doric to be at the bottom, with the Ionic and then the Corinthian above, and the Doric, as "strongest", is often used on the ground floor below another order in the storey above. In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on
646-409: The Doric, the triglyph and gutta , are skeuomorphic memories of the beams and retaining pegs of the wooden constructions that preceded stone Doric temples. In stone they are purely ornamental . The relatively uncommon Roman and Renaissance Doric retained these, and often introduced thin layers of moulding or further ornament, as well as often using plain columns. More often they used versions of
684-537: The Parthenon. Pronounced features of both Greek and Roman versions of the Doric order are the alternating triglyphs and metopes . The triglyphs are decoratively grooved with two vertical grooves ("tri-glyph") and represent the original wooden end-beams, which rest on the plain architrave that occupies the lower half of the entablature. Under each triglyph are peglike "stagons" or "guttae" (literally: drops) that appear as if they were hammered in from below to stabilize
722-432: The architect. Often the last two columns were set slightly closer together ( corner contraction ), to give a subtle visual strengthening to the corners. That is called the "classic" solution of the corner conflict ( IV. ). Triglyphs could be arranged in a harmonic manner again, and the corner was terminated with a triglyph, though the final triglyph and column were often not centered. Roman aesthetics did not demand that
760-526: The centre of the Augustan cult, is shown on Roman coins of the 2nd century CE as having been built in octastyle. The decastyle has ten columns; as in the temple of Apollo Didymaeus at Miletus , and the portico of University College London . The only known Roman decastyle portico is on the Temple of Venus and Roma , built by Hadrian in about 130 CE. Doric order The Doric order
798-409: The corner triglyph should form the corner of the entablature, creating an inharmonious mismatch with the supporting column. The architecture followed rules of harmony. Since the original design probably came from wooden temples and the triglyphs were real heads of wooden beams, every column had to bear a beam which lay across the centre of the column. Triglyphs were arranged regularly; the last triglyph
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#1732790348153836-401: The flat pavement (the stylobate ) of a temple without a base. With a height only four to eight times their diameter, the columns were the most squat of all the classical orders; their vertical shafts were fluted with 20 parallel concave grooves , each rising to a sharp edge called an arris . They were topped by a smooth capital that flared from the column to meet a square abacus at
874-596: The four columned portico for their pseudoperipteral temples like the Temple of Portunus , and for amphiprostyle temples such as the Temple of Venus and Roma , and for the prostyle entrance porticos of large public buildings like the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine . Roman provincial capitals also manifested tetrastyle construction, such as the Capitoline Temple in Volubilis . The North Portico of
912-463: The inspiration for the Doric came from Mycenae. At the ruins of this civilization lies architecture very similar to the Doric order. It is also in Greece, which would make it very accessible. Some of the earliest examples of the Doric order come from the 7th-century BC. These examples include the Temple of Apollo at Corinth and the Temple of Zeus at Nemea . Other examples of the Doric order include
950-612: The intersection with the horizontal beam ( architrave ) that they carried. The Parthenon has the Doric design columns. It was most popular in the Archaic Period (750–480 BC) in mainland Greece, and also found in Magna Graecia (southern Italy), as in the three temples at Paestum . These are in the Archaic Doric, where the capitals spread wide from the column compared to later Classical forms, as exemplified in
988-519: The largest temple in classical Athens , is also in the Doric order, although the sculptural enrichment is more familiar in the Ionic order: the Greeks were never as doctrinaire in the use of the Classical vocabulary as Renaissance theorists or Neoclassical architects. The detail, part of the basic vocabulary of trained architects from the later 18th century onwards, shows how the width of the metopes
1026-434: The last triglyph was not centered with the corresponding column. That "archaic" manner was not regarded as a harmonious design. The resulting problem is called the doric corner conflict . Another approach was to apply a broader corner triglyph ( III. ) but was not really satisfying. Because the metopes are somewhat flexible in their proportions, the modular space between columns ("intercolumniation") can be adjusted by
1064-419: The post-and-beam ( trabeated ) construction. They also served to "organize" rainwater runoff from above. The spaces between the triglyphs are the "metopes". They may be left plain, or they may be carved in low relief. The spacing of the triglyphs caused problems which took some time to resolve. A triglyph is centered above every column, with another (or sometimes two) between columns, though the Greeks felt that
1102-585: The prostyle porch of the sanctuary of Athena on the Erechtheum , at the Acropolis of Athens . With the colonization by the Greeks of Southern Italy , hexastyle was adopted by the Etruscans and subsequently acquired by the ancient Romans . Roman taste favoured narrow pseudoperipteral and amphiprostyle buildings with tall columns, raised on podiums for the added pomp and grandeur conferred by considerable height. The Maison Carrée at Nîmes , France ,
1140-474: The sudden appearance of stone temples from one period after the other, this becomes mostly speculation. Another belief is that the Doric was inspired by the architecture of Egypt . With the Greeks being present in Ancient Egypt as soon the 7th-century BC, it is possible that Greek traders were inspired by the structures they saw in what they would consider foreign land. Finally, another theory states that
1178-495: The three 6th-century BC temples at Paestum in southern Italy, a region called Magna Graecia , which was settled by Greek colonists. Compared to later versions, the columns are much more massive, with a strong entasis or swelling, and wider capitals. The Temple of the Delians is a " peripteral " Doric order temple, the largest of three dedicated to Apollo on the island of Delos . It was begun in 478 BC and never completely finished. During their period of independence from Athens,
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1216-496: The top of the shafts and the wide cushionlike echinus may be interpreted as slightly self-conscious archaising features, for Delos is Apollo's ancient birthplace. However, the similar fluting at the base of the shafts might indicate an intention for the plain shafts to be capable of wrapping in drapery. A classic statement of the Greek Doric order is the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, built about 447 BC. The contemporary Parthenon ,
1254-460: The vehicles pass through for passengers to board or exit rather than being parked beneath the covered area. Guard stones are often found at the foot of portes-cochère, acting as protective bollards to prevent vehicles from damaging the structure. Portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade , with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea
1292-419: Was centred upon the last column ( illustration, right: I. ). This was regarded as the ideal solution which had to be reached. Changing to stone cubes instead of wooden beams required full support of the architrave load at the last column. At the first temples the final triglyph was moved ( illustration, right: II. ), still terminating the sequence, but leaving a gap disturbing the regular order. Even worse,
1330-402: Was flexible: here they bear the famous sculptures including the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs . In the Roman Doric version, the height of the entablature has been reduced. The endmost triglyph is centered over the column rather than occupying the corner of the architrave. The columns are slightly less robust in their proportions. Below their caps, an astragal molding encircles the column like
1368-547: Was in the circular Tempietto by Donato Bramante (1502 or later), in the courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio , Rome. Before Greek Revival architecture grew, initially in England, in the 18th century, the Greek or elaborated Roman Doric order had not been very widely used, though "Tuscan" types of round capitals were always popular, especially in less formal buildings. It was sometimes used in military contexts, for example
1406-478: Was often used to determine which type of column would be used for a particular structure. Later periods reviving classical architecture used the Roman Doric until Neoclassical architecture arrived in the later 18th century. This followed the first good illustrations and measured descriptions of Greek Doric buildings. The most influential, and perhaps the earliest, use of the Doric in Renaissance architecture
1444-511: Was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures . Porticos are sometimes topped with pediments . Palladio was a pioneer of using temple-fronts for secular buildings. In the UK , the temple-front applied to The Vyne , Hampshire, was the first portico applied to an English country house . A pronaos ( UK : / p r oʊ ˈ n eɪ . ɒ s / or US : / p r oʊ ˈ n eɪ . ə s / )
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