Colonnade and Lift at Madeira Drive, Brighton (April 2013).jpg

In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curved. The space enclosed may be covered or open. In St. Peter's Square in Rome, Bernini's great colonnade encloses a vast open elliptical space.

When in front of a building, screening the door (Latin ''porta''), it is called a portico. When enclosing an open court, a peristyle. A portico may be more than one rank of columns deep, as at the Pantheon in Rome or the stoae of Ancient Greece.

When the intercolumniation is alternately wide and narrow, a colonnade may be termed "araeosystyle" (Gr. αραιος, "widely spaced", and συστυλος, "with columns set close together"), as in the case of the western porch of St Paul's Cathedral and the east front of the Louvre.

History

Colonnades have been built since ancient times and interpretations of the classical model have continued through to modern times, and Neoclassical styles remained popular for centuries. At the British Museum, for example, porticos are continued along the front as a colonnade. The porch of columns that surrounds the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (in style a ''peripteral'' classical temple) can be termed a colonnade. As well as the traditional use in buildings and monuments, colonnades are used in sports stadiums such as the Harvard Stadium in Boston, where the entire horseshoe-shaped stadium is topped by a colonnade. The longest colonnade in the United States, with 36 Corinthian columns, is the New York State Education Building in Albany, New York.New York State Department of Education Building
Emporis. Retrieved on 2009-5-23.

Notable colonnades

Ancient world

File:Luxor Temple R07.jpg, The colonnade of Amenhotep III at the Luxor temple
File:Reconstruction of Stoa of Attalos (3357410911).jpg, The Stoa of Attalos in the reconstructed Ancient Agora of Athens
File:Palmyra, Syria - 2.jpg, The Great Colonnade at Palmyra, Syria
File:Baalbek-Jupiter.jpg, Baalbeck, Lebanon
File:Colonnade in Ephesus.jpg, Ephesus
File:Station of Venezia Santa Lucia (7803866220).jpg, Modern colonnade at the Santa Lucia rail station, Venice

Renaissance and Baroque periods

File:Colonnade in Palacio de Carlos V.JPG, Palace of Charles V, Granada (1527)
File:St Peter's Square, Vatican City - April 2007.jpg, Bernini's colonnade St. Peter's Square, Vatican City (1660s)
File:St. Peter's Square, 1992.jpg, Detail of St. Peter's Square colonnade
File:Louvre Kolonnaden.JPG, Colonnade of the Louvre, Paris (1670)

Neoclassical

File:P1030420 Paris VIII église de la Madeleine colonnes façade occidentale rwk.JPG, The church of La Madeleine, Paris (consecrated 1842)
File:GPOSydneyInterior2007.jpg, Vaulted colonnade in the General Post Office, Sydney (1890s)
File:Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University.jpg, Main entrance to the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge (19th century)
File: Brussels 3 157.jpg, Colonnade of the Arcade du Cinquantenaire, Brussels (1905)
File:NYSED.jpg, New York State Education Building, Albany, New York (1912)

Modern interpretations

File:Palacio da Alvorada Exterior.jpg, Palácio da Alvorada, by Oscar Niemeyer, in Brasília, Brazil (1958)
File:Johnson spanish music 1916 3.jpg, Lebus Court, Bridges Hall of Music, Pomona College, by Myron Hunt in Claremont, California, United States (1915)
File:Scripps College for Women-10.jpg, Balch Hall, Scripps College by Sumner Hunt and Gordon Kaufmann in Claremont, California, United States (1929)

See also

*Arcade
*Cloister
*Engaged column

References

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Columns and entablature
Architectural elements