The Corinthian order is one of the Classical orders of Greek and Roman architecture, although it was seldom used in Greek architecture. The other two orders were the Doric and the Ionic. (When classical architecture was revived, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order.)

The Corinthian order was said to have been invented by an architect, Callimachus, who was inspired by the sight of a votive basket that had been left on the grave of a young girl. A few of her toys were in it, and a square tile had been placed over the basket, to protect them from the weather. An acanthus plant had grown through the woven basket, mixing its spiny, deeply cut leaves with the weave of the basket. Or so Vitruvius said. Claude Perrault incorporated a vignette of the tale in his illustration of the Corinthian order for his translation of Vitruvius, published in Paris, 1684. Perrault demonstrates in his engraving how the proportions of the carved capital could be adjusted according to demands of the design, without offending. The texture and outline of Perrault’s leaves is dry and tight compared to their 19th-century naturalism at the U.S. Capitol.

A Corinthian capital may be seen as an enriched development of the Ionic capital, though one may have to look closely at a Corinthian capital (illustration, right) to see the Ionic volutes at the corners, perhaps reduced in size and importance, scrolling out above the two ranks of leaves, and the smaller volutes scrolling inwards to meet each other on each side. The leaves may be quite stiff, schematic and dry, or they may be extravagantly undercut, naturalistic and spiky. In Late Antique and Byzantine practice, the leaves may be blown sideways, as if by the wind of Faith. Unlike the Doric and Ionic column capitals, a Corinthian capital has no neck beneath it, just a ring-like astragal molding or a banding that forms the base of the capital, recalling the base of the legendary basket.

The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian. (There are two lesser orders, the stocky Tuscan order and the rich variant of Corinthian, the Composite order, added by 16th century Italian architectural theory and practice.)

The Ionic order originated in the mid-6th century BC in Ionia, the southwestern coastland and islands of Asia Minor settled by Ionian Greeks, where an Ionian dialect was spoken. The Ionic order was being practised in mainland Greece in the 5th century BC. The first of the great Ionic temples, though it stood for only a decade before an earthquake levelled it, was the Temple of Hera on Samos, built about 570 BC - 560 BC by the architect Rhoikos. It was in the great sanctuary of the goddess: it could scarcely have been in a more prominent location for its brief lifetime. A longer-lasting 6th century Ionic temple was the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Unlike the Greek Doric order, Ionic columns normally stand on a base (but see illustration, left) which separates the shaft of the column from the stylobate or platform. The capital of the Ionic column has characteristic paired scrolling volutes that are laid on the molded cap (”echinus”) of the column, or spring from within it. The cap is usually enriched with egg-and-dart.

Originally the volutes lay in a single plane (illustration at right); then it was seen that they could be angled out on the corners. This feature of the Ionic order made it more pliant and satisfactory than the Doric to critical eyes in the 4th century BC: angling the volutes on the corner columns, ensured that they “read” equally when seen from either front or side facade. The 16th-century Renaissance architect and theorist Vincenzo Scamozzi designed a version of such a perfectly four-sided Ionic capital, which became so much the standard, that when a Greek Ionic order was eventually reintroduced, in the later 18th century Greek Revival, it conveyed an air of archaic freshness and primitive, perhaps even republican, vitality.

The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of Ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Greek Doric order was the earliest of these, known from the 7th century BC and reaching its mature form in the 5th century BC.

In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base; their vertical shafts were fluted with parallel concave grooves; and they were topped by a smooth capital that flared from the column to meet a square abacus at the intersection with the horizontal beam (”entablature”) that they carried.

A pronounced feature of both Greek and Roman versions of the Doric order are the triglyphs and metopes. The triglyphs are decoratively grooved and represent the original wooden end-beams, which rest on the plain frieze that occupies the lower half of the entablature. Under each triglyph are peglike guttae that appear as if they were hammered in from below to stabilize the post-and-beam (”trabeated”) construction.

A triglyph is centered above every column, with another (or sometimes two) between columns, though the Greeks felt that the corner triglyph should form the corner of the entablature, creating an inharmonious mismatch with the supporting column. The spaces between the triglyphs are the metopes. They may be left plain, or they may be carved in low relief. Because the metopes are somewhat flexible in their proportions, the modular space between columns (”intercolumniation”) can be adjusted by the architect. Often the last two columns were set slightly closer together, to give a subtle visual strengthening to the corners. (more…)

A gutter is a long, thin trough, usually one that runs straight.

A gutter (sometimes referred to as a ditch) runs along a street or road (if there is a sidewalk, the gutter is often between the road and the sidewalk) and carries water away from the thoroughfare into a sewer.

The popular image of a drunk or bum lying in such a trench gave rise to the adjective “gutter”, meaning vulgar. Related to this popular usage are the idioms “to be in the gutter”, meaning “to be down on one’s luck” and “having one’s mind in the gutter”, meaning “having vulgar thoughts”.

A gutter (sometimes referred to as an eavestrough or rain gutter), is a narrow channel which runs along the eaves of a building and serves to collect rain water and direct it down away from the roof to prevent drips off the roof edges.
In bowling, the gutters are long grooves on either side of a lane which are slightly wider than a bowling ball, and into which a ball can easily roll. If it does, the ball cannot strike any pins, and the player receives no points for that throw.

In typography a gutter is the space between columns of printed text. This has been adapted into comics jargon to describe the narrow spaces between panels.

In comics, the gutter is the space between the panels, and, according to Scott McCloud, is where all of the real action happens in a comic.

In forums, the gutter is a specialized forum where few to none of the forum’s general rules apply, allowing approved Gutter members to post questionable content that would normally merit deletion in the general forum.

An eave is the edge of a roof. Eaves usually project beyond the side of the building. Some buildings, such as craftsman bungalows, have very wide eaves with decorative brackets.

The word eave can also refer to the part of a sloping roof that overhangs the wall, the part of a roof which projects out from the side wall, or the lower edge of the part of a roof that overhangs a wall.

An entablature (entab’lechoor; Latin, and tabula, a tablet) is a classical architectural element, the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above the columns, resting on their capitals. It is commonly divided into the architrave, the supporting member carried from column to column, pier or wall, the part immediately above the column; the frieze, an unmolded strip that may or may not be ornamented; and the cornice, the projecting and protective member.

The Doric version of the entablature is fairly simple. The architrave, the lowest band, is split, from bottom to top, into the guttae, the regulae, and the taenia.

The frieze is dominated by the triglyphs, vertically channelled tablets, separated by metopes, which may or may not be decorated. The triglyphs sit on top of the taenia, a flat, thin, horizontal protrusion, and are finished at the bottom of by (often ornate) decoration of drops, called guttae, which belong to the top of the architrave. The top of the triglyphs meet the protrusion of the cornice from the entablature. The underside of this protrusion is decorated with mutules, tablets that are typically finished with guttae.

The cornice is split into the soffit, the corona, and the cymatium. The soffit is simply exposed underside. The corona and the cymatium are the principal parts of the cornice.

The Ionic order of entablature adds the fascia in the architrave, which are flat horizontal protrusions, and the dentils under the cornice, which are tooth-like rectangular block moldings.

In architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain or - in the Ionic or Corinthian order - decorated with bas-reliefs. In a columnar wall it lies upon the architrave (’main beam’) and is capped by the moldings of the cornice.

In the interior of a room, the frieze of a room is the section of wall above the picture rail under the crown moldings or cornice. By extension, a frieze is a long band of painted, sculpted or even written decoration in such a position, above eye-level. These decorations often depict scenes, in an almost storyboard or animated sequence.

An example of an architectural frieze on the facade of a buildind is the octagonal Tower of the Winds in the Roman agora at Athens, which bears sculptures of the eight winds on its frieze.

This concept has been generalized in the mathematical construction of Frieze patterns.

Molding is a strip of material with various cross sections used to cover transitions between surfaces or for decoration. It is traditionally made from solid milled wood or plaster but may be made from plastic or reformed wood.

A “sprung” molding is a strip that has beveled edges, allowing it to be mounted at an angle between two non-parallel planes (such as between a wall and a ceiling). Other types of molding are referred to as “plain”.

Types

There are a variety of common moldings:
Astragal - attached to one of a pair of doors to serve as a stop for the other door. The two types are “T-Astragal” and “Flat Astragal”. The later is primarily used for decorative purposes.
Base molding - used at the junction of an interior wall and floor to protect the wall from impacts.
Batten - a symmetrical molding that is placed across a joint where two parallel panels or boards meet.
Bed molding - a narrow molding used at the junction of a wall and ceiling. Bed moldings can be either sprung or plain.
Casing - the trim for both sides of a window opening.
Chair rails - a horizontal molding placed part way up a wall to protect the surface from chairs. Primarily used now for decoration.
Corner guard - a molding used to protect the edge of the wall at an outside corner, or to cover a joint on an inside corner.
Cove molding - a concave-profile molding that is used at the junction of an interior wall and ceiling.
Crown molding - a wide, sprung molding that is used at the junction of an interior wall and ceiling.
Drip cap - this is placed over a door or window opening to prevent water from flowing under the siding or across the glass.
Keel molding - with a sharp edge, resembling in cross-section the keel of a ship.
Screen molding - this is a small molding that is used to hide the area were a screen is attached to the frame.