A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or
lathe
A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to c ...
-turned form found in
stairways
Stairs are a structure designed to bridge a large vertical distance between lower and higher levels by dividing it into smaller vertical distances. This is achieved as a diagonal series of horizontal platforms called steps which enable passage ...
,
parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...
s, and other architectural features. In
furniture
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...
construction it is known as a
spindle
Spindle may refer to:
Textiles and manufacturing
* Spindle (textiles), a straight spike to spin fibers into yarn
* Spindle (tool), a rotating axis of a machine tool
Biology
* Common spindle and other species of shrubs and trees in genus ''Euony ...
. Common materials used in its construction are wood, stone, and less frequently metal and ceramic. A group of balusters supporting a
handrail
A handrail is a rail that is designed to be grasped by the hand so as to provide safety or support. In Britain, handrails are referred to as banisters. Handrails are usually used to provide support for body or to hold clothings in a bathroom or ...
,
coping
Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviours and can be individual or social.
Theories of coping
Hundreds of coping strategies have been proposed in an attempt to ...
, or ornamental detail are known as a balustrade.
The term baluster shaft is used to describe forms such as a candlestick, upright furniture support, and the stem of a brass chandelier.
The term banister (also bannister) refers to a baluster or to the system of balusters and handrail of a stairway. It may be used to include its supporting structures, such as a supporting
newel
A newel, also called a central pole or support column, is the central supporting pillar of a staircase. It can also refer to an upright post that supports and/or terminates the handrail of a stair banister (the "newel post"). In stairs having st ...
post.
Etymology
According to the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'', "baluster" is derived through the french: balustre, from it, balaustro, from ''balaustra'', "pomegranate flower"
rom a resemblance to the swelling form of the half-open flower (''illustration, below right'') from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''balaustium'', from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
βαλαύστιον (''balaustion'').
History
The earliest examples of balusters are those shown in the
bas-relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
s representing the
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
n palaces, where they were employed as functional window balustrades and apparently had
Ionic capitals.
As an architectural element alone the balustrade did not seem to have been known to either the
Greeks
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
or the
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
,
but baluster forms are familiar in the legs of chairs and tables represented in Roman bas-reliefs, where the original legs or the models for cast bronze ones were shaped on the lathe, or in Antique marble candelabra, formed as a series of stacked bulbous and disc-shaped elements, both kinds of sources familiar to
Quattrocento
The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encom ...
designers.
The application to architecture was a feature of the early
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Ancient Greece, ancient Greek and ...
: late fifteenth-century examples are found in the balconies of palaces at
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
and
Verona
Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...
. These quattrocento balustrades are likely to be following yet-unidentified
Gothic precedents. They form balustrades of
colonette A colonnette is a small slender column, usually decorative, which supports a beam or lintel. Colonettes have also been used to refer to a feature of furnishings such as a dressing table and case clock, and even studied by archeologists in Roman ce ...
s as an alternative to miniature arcading.
Rudolf Wittkower
Rudolf Wittkower (22 June 1901 – 11 October 1971) was a British art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, who spent much of his career in London, but was educated in Germany, and later moved to the Unite ...
withheld judgement as to the inventor of the baluster and credited
Giuliano da Sangallo
Giuliano da Sangallo (c. 1445 – 1516) was an Italian sculptor, architect and military engineer active during the Italian Renaissance. He is known primarily for being the favored architect of Lorenzo de' Medici, his patron. In this role, Giulia ...
with using it consistently as early as the balustrade on the
terrace
Terrace may refer to:
Landforms and construction
* Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river
* Terrace, a street suffix
* Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk an ...
and stairs at the
Medici
The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Muge ...
villa at
Poggio a Caiano
Poggio a Caiano is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Prato, Tuscany region Italy. The town, birthplace of Philip Mazzei, lies south of the provincial capital of Prato.
Sister towns
Poggio a Caiano has two sister cities:
* Charlottesvi ...
(''c'' 1480), and used balustrades in his reconstructions of antique structures. Sangallo passed the motif to
Bramante
Donato Bramante ( , , ; 1444 – 11 April 1514), born as Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio and also known as Bramante Lazzari, was an Italian architect and painter. He introduced Renaissance architecture to Milan and the High Renaissance style ...
(his
Tempietto Tempietto (Italian: "small temple") generally means a small temple-like or pavilion-like structure and is a name of many places in Italy:
* San Pietro in Montorio#The Tempietto in Rome, a tomb by Donato Bramante
* Villa Barbaro#Church (Tempietto ...
, 1502) and
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...
, through whom balustrades gained wide currency in the 16th century.
Wittkower distinguished two types, one symmetrical in profile that inverted one bulbous vase-shape over another, separating them with a cushionlike
torus
In geometry, a torus (plural tori, colloquially donut or doughnut) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with the circle.
If the axis of revolution does not tou ...
or a concave ring, and the other a simple vase shape, whose employment by Michelangelo at the
Campidoglio
The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill ( ; it, Campidoglio ; la, Mons Capitolinus ), between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome.
The hill was earlier known as ''Mons Saturnius'', dedicated to the god Saturn. ...
steps (''c'' 1546), noted by Wittkower, was preceded by very early vasiform balusters in a balustrade round the drum of
Santa Maria delle Grazie (''c'' 1482), and railings in the cathedrals of
Aquileia
Aquileia / / / / ;Bilingual name of ''Aquileja – Oglej'' in: vec, Aquiłeja / ; Slovenian: ''Oglej''), group=pron is an ancient Roman city in Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about from the sea, on the river N ...
(''c'' 1495) and
Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...
, in the cortile of San Damaso, Vatican, and
Antonio da Sangallo's crowning balustrade on the
Santa Casa at Loreto installed in 1535, and liberally in his model for the
Basilica of Saint Peter
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a church built in the Renaissance style located in Vatican City, the papal e ...
. Because of its low
center of gravity
In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weight function, weighted relative position (vector), position of the distributed mass sums to zero. Thi ...
, this "vase-baluster" may be given the modern term "dropped baluster".
Materials used
![Bradbury Building, interior, ironwork](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Bradbury_Building%2C_interior%2C_ironwork.jpg)
Balusters may be made of
carved stone,
cast stone
Cast stone or reconstructed stone is a highly refined building material, a form of precast concrete used as masonry intended to simulate natural-cut stone. It is used for architectural features: trim, or ornament; facing buildings or other st ...
,
plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...
,
polymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
,
polyurethane
Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) refers to a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethan ...
/
polystyrene
Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a ...
,
polyvinyl chloride (PVC),
precast concrete
Precast concrete is a construction product produced by casting concrete in a reusable molding (process), mold or "form" which is then cured in a controlled environment, transported to the construction site and maneuvered into place; examples i ...
,
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
or
wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...
. Cast-stone balusters were a development of the 18th century in Great Britain (see
Coade stone), and
cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
balusters a development largely of the 1840s. As balusters and balustrades have evolved, they can now be made from various materials with a few popular choices being timber, glass and stainless steel.
Profiles and style changes
![Archaeological Journal, Volume 1, 0043b](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Archaeological_Journal%2C_Volume_1%2C_0043b.png)
The baluster, being a
turned structure, tends to follow design precedents that were set in woodworking and ceramic practices, where the
turner's lathe and the
potter's wheel
In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping (known as throwing) of clay into round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming excess clay from leather-hard dried ware that is stiff but malleable, a ...
are ancient tools. The profile a baluster takes is often diagnostic of a particular style of architecture or furniture, and may offer a rough guide to date of a design, though not of a particular example.
Some complicated
Mannerist
Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, ...
baluster forms can be read as a vase set upon another vase. The high shoulders and bold, rhythmic shapes of the
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
vase and baluster forms are distinctly different from the sober baluster forms of
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was ...
, which look to other precedents, like Greek
amphora
An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...
s. The distinctive twist-turned designs of balusters in oak and walnut English and Dutch seventeenth-century furniture, which took as their prototype the
Solomonic column
The Solomonic column, also called Barley-sugar column, is a helical column, characterized by a spiraling twisting shaft like a corkscrew. It is not associated with a specific classical order, although most examples have Corinthian or Composite c ...
that was given prominence by
Bernini, fell out of style after the 1710s.
Once it had been taken from the lathe, a turned wood baluster could be split and applied to an architectural surface, or to one in which architectonic themes were more freely treated, as on cabinets made in Italy, Spain and Northern Europe from the sixteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Modern baluster design is also in use for example in designs influenced by the
Arts and Crafts movement in a 1905 row of houses in Etchingham Park Road Finchley London England.
Outside Europe, the baluster column appeared as a new motif in
Mughal architecture, introduced in
Shah Jahan
Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...
's interventions in two of the three great fortress-palaces, the
Red Fort of Agra and
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
, in the early seventeenth century. Foliate baluster columns with naturalistic foliate capitals, unexampled in previous Indo-Islamic architecture according to
Ebba Koch
Ebba Koch is an Austrian art and architectural historian, who defines and discusses cultural issues of interest to political, social and economic historians. Presently she is a professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, Austria and a s ...
, rapidly became one of the most widely used forms of supporting shaft in Northern and Central India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
[Ebba Koch 1982:251–262.]
The modern term baluster shaft is applied to the shaft dividing a window in
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
architecture. In the south transept of
the Abbey in St Albans, England, are some of these shafts, supposed to have been taken from the old Saxon church.
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
bases and capitals have been added, together with plain cylindrical Norman shafts.
Balusters are normally separated by at least the same measurement as the size of the square bottom section. Placing balusters too far apart diminishes their aesthetic appeal, and the structural integrity of the balustrade they form. Balustrades normally terminate in heavy
newel
A newel, also called a central pole or support column, is the central supporting pillar of a staircase. It can also refer to an upright post that supports and/or terminates the handrail of a stair banister (the "newel post"). In stairs having st ...
posts, columns, and building walls for structural support.
Balusters may be formed in several ways. Wood and stone can be shaped on the lathe, wood can be cut from square or rectangular section boards, while concrete, plaster, iron, and plastics are usually formed by molding and casting. Turned patterns or old examples are used for the molds.
Gallery
File:Muzeum Kapitolinskie.JPG, A vasiform balustrade crowns Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...
's Palazzo dei Conservatori
The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill ( ; it, Campidoglio ; la, Mons Capitolinus ), between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome.
The hill was earlier known as ''Mons Saturnius'', dedicated to the god Saturn. Th ...
on the Campidoglio
The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill ( ; it, Campidoglio ; la, Mons Capitolinus ), between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome.
The hill was earlier known as ''Mons Saturnius'', dedicated to the god Saturn. ...
(Rome)
File:Arts and Crafts Balusters 1905 Etchingham Park Road Finchley London.JPG, Balusters influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement in a 1905 row of houses in Etchingham Park Road (Finchley
Finchley () is a large district of north London, England, in the London Borough of Barnet. Finchley is on high ground, north of Charing Cross.
Nearby districts include: Golders Green, Muswell Hill, Friern Barnet, Whetstone, Mill Hill and H ...
, London)
File:BrownUniversity-OrwigMusicBuilding.jpg, Ornate upper bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
balustrade, lower vasiform stone balustrade, and bronze central rail supported by decorative bronze metalwork at Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
's Orwig Music Library
File:Balustrade.jpg, Balustrade of turned wood balusters
File:Balustrade vom Schloss Veitshöchheim.jpg, Stone balustrade at Schloss Veitshöchheim near Würzburg
Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River.
Würzburg is ...
, Germany
File:Serpent Balustrade (38652343971).jpg, Balustrade in the form of a serpent, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai (, from th, เชียงใหม่ , nod, , เจียงใหม่ ), sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in ...
, Thailand
File:Balustrade of Saint Servatius bridge.JPG, Bronze balustrade, formerly of Saint Servatius bridge of 1836, now in Maastricht
Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...
, Netherlands
File:Wrought iron baluster installation before and after (8) (5079407807).jpg, Simple balustrade of turned wood balusters of a style common in North America
File:Chiesa di San Gaetano balaustra del presbiterio Brescia.jpg, Marble balustrade in San Gaetano, Brescia, Italy
File:Florence Truelson, Stairway Balustrade, c. 1937, NGA 24871.jpg, alt=Watercolor of wooden balustrade, Stairway Balustrade by Florence Truelson, 1937 (National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
), USA
File:FR Carskie Siolo, Galeria Camerona, 2013.08.10, fot. I. Nowicka (41) corr.jpg, The balustrade of Cameron's Gallery at Tsarskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo ( rus, Ца́рское Село́, p=ˈtsarskəɪ sʲɪˈlo, a=Ru_Tsarskoye_Selo.ogg, "Tsar's Village") was the town containing a former residence of the Russian imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the cen ...
, Russia
See also
*
Bollard
*
Guard rail
Guard rail, guardrails, or protective guarding, in general, are a boundary feature and may be a means to prevent or deter access to dangerous or off-limits areas while allowing light and visibility in a greater way than a fence. Common shapes ...
*
Handrail
A handrail is a rail that is designed to be grasped by the hand so as to provide safety or support. In Britain, handrails are referred to as banisters. Handrails are usually used to provide support for body or to hold clothings in a bathroom or ...
Citations
General and cited references
* (Links are to the 1983 American edition.)
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
Architectural elements
Garden features
Stairways
Pedestrian infrastructure
Architectural history
Ironmongery