A portico in parts

Columns, cornice, balustrade and chimneys: reading a classical portico one element at a time.

A cream classical building with Corinthian columns, a curved portico, a balustrade and chimney stacks.

The question

What does a portico look like once it stops being one object?

Traced from a photograph, this curved portico breaks into Corinthian columns, an entablature, a balustrade and a line of chimney stacks. Numbering each part slows the eye down enough to see how they depend on one another.

Round the curve

On a curved front the columns seem to change their spacing as you move. The balustrade above keeps one steady rhythm and ties them back together.

A cream classical building with Corinthian columns, a curved portico, a balustrade and chimney stacks.
A curved Corinthian portico. Photograph: silviamaringiraldo, CC0.

What we kept

The smallest repeated part often carries the whole facade. Here it is the baluster, not the column.