The Three Orders of Architecture

Capitals of the five classical orders, with a second Ionic variant, from an eighteenth-century plate in the Encyclopédie.

The Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders are systems of design used in classical architecture. An order includes the proportions and treatment of a column and the horizontal structure it supports, called the entablature. The capital is often its most readily recognised feature.

Distinguishing features

Order	Features
Doric	In Greek examples, a fluted column normally stands without a separate base. Its plain capital supports an entablature with alternating triglyphs and metopes in the frieze.
Ionic	Columns stand on bases. The capital has scrolls, called volutes, and the frieze can carry continuous sculptural decoration.
Corinthian	The capital is decorated with acanthus leaves and small volutes. Developed later than the other two Greek orders, it became particularly common in Hellenistic and Roman architecture.

These descriptions summarise Greek forms; details changed as the orders were reused in later buildings.

The familiar system of five orders also includes Tuscan and Composite. Julien Mauclerc's A New Treatise of Architecture, catalogued by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, explicitly treats all five.

Classical design in Masonic buildings

Masonic halls provide examples of the later use of classical forms. At Phoenix Hall in Sunderland, built in 1784–1785, Historic England records a neoclassical lodge room with engaged Doric columns and chimney pieces incorporating Doric entablatures.

See also

• The Five Classical Orders of Architecture
• The Layout of the Craft Lodge
• The Pavement