The Sixth Order

Mark Arnold

Mark Arnold

Well-known member
Is anyone knowledgeable about the quest for a sixth order of architecture?

In the 19th century, there was at least one international competition promising a substantial prize to the historian who could discover, or to the architect who could design, a logical and comprehensive order to add to the first five. Obviously, it was never found or we would all know about it now. It has been ten, maybe fifteen years, since I read about this, but I can't recall where or any other specifics (too much walnut dust, perhaps).

Ideas, anyone?
 
Mark,

I haven't heard about the quest to locate the sixth order but I do know that architechtural history is littered with attempts at establishing a new order. I recall one of the major figures in English design (possibly Wren?) came up with a Brittish order emblazened with Lions and unicorns. There are also scores of regional variations that came and went. Go into any Catholic cathedral built in the late 19th early 20th century and you will encounter some different looking orders. It is a bit hard to imagine a new order from a proportion standpoint that would fill in a gap not already occupied by the greek and roman versions of the orders. True practitioners in using the orders can manipulate the proportions to accomodate a wide range of applications, it's hard to imagine a new order. Unless we invent a totaly modern order. It would have an anti-proportional scheme, isn't required to be vertical, but it is required to shock the veiwer.

George Walker 
 
There's absolutely a sixth order.  I used to use it everyday. 

One must understand that the reason we should be using the orders is because they make things better; better, stronger, lighter, and better because people like stuff that follows the orders. It looks right.  The orders aren't arbitrary.  They are based on simple strength of materials.  Trees follow the orders. 

The sixth order, like all those that precede it, is also based on strengths of materials, but with new materials, we can make stuff more slender, more sleek.  And its funny how things designed from these new materials and designed using the latest techniques really do follow an unwritten proportion rule.  Though never discussed as a proportion rule, the sixth order of architecture is very clearly illustrated and explained in the many books comprising the Boeing Design Manual.

Adam
 
Adam,

I'm going to take your word about the Boeing Design manual, unless you are a little more specific as to which section, since the copy in my office spans 2 large shelfs.
 
Mark,
I did a bit of research and I found that in 1702 the king of France promised a reward to the inventor of a new order of architecture.  A fellow by the name of Sturmius tried.  He called it the Germanic order and supposed it to be between the Ionic and Corinthian orders.  He failed.  Thomas Jeffereson tried to establish a sixth order called the Columbian.  It resembled a stalk of Indian corn.  The design was actually used in the vestibule of the Capital in Washington.

I just did a quoted search in google for "sixth order of architecture".  Tons of stuff came up.
 
Tim,

I guess my point was only that the orders are primarily structural, not esthetic.  And the 5 orders span a useful range of basic height to width ratios for a member in compression.  And as long as those members are stone or wood and the analysis tools are rudimentary, the original 5 are all we really need.  So I'm not surprised a 6th order didn't catch on.  Though we learned to distinguish the orders by the carvings of the capitals in grade school, that's really not what they're about.  A new carving doesn't a new order make. :) 

This is especially true for us.  I use the orders to size table and chair legs.  The capital carvings mean nothing to me.  And I don't need another order between corinthian and composite.

All I was suggesting with my original post was that modern analysis tools, coupled with modern materials can produce structures taller and more slender than the composite order.  The Boeing Design Manuals proscribe ways of analyzing tubes in compression say- forcing an eccentricity and an Euler solution, crippling checks etc.  In my experience, all the tubes I ever worked with, when optimized for weight, came out roughly the same.

So studio furniture makers, or modern architects, may be able to use these materials and analysis tools, and in time, a new lighter looking order will emerge. 

I don't think this was exactly what Mark was wondering about and I'm not sure why I threw my 2 cents in about the orders.  To answer your question, I'm not sure which BDM number is for tubes in compression.  I'm just saying that using guidelines like that will result in a proportion rule not unlike the column orders.  And I think that's what the column orders were for- they were an empirically derived substitute for analysis.

Adam
 
The capital carvings mean nothing to me.  And I don't need another order between corinthian and composite.

Just relaying what I learned.  It may not satisfy your beliefs but apparently a lot of other people (some notable) in history have had other ideas.  I am an engineer myself and I always try to keep an open mind.  Too many bridges have fallen because people wouldn't conside alternate theories or ideas.
 
Sam, I'm really not sure what you're talking about. If you look at the numbers, you'll see what I mean.  This is a bit of a simplification, but its the sort of simplification I find useful.

A module is the max shaft of the column.  Below is the height of each order in modules:

TUSCAN  11
DORIC  12.5
IONIC  12.5
CORINTHIAN  14
COMPOSITE  15

As applied, a 30" table would have a 2" thick leg (COMP) or a little fatter.  The size of the apron and position of a stretcher or ankle detail would vary a little bit depending on the order chosen.  People are accustomed to seeing these sorts of sizes. 

I don't think the ancients could produce a more slender column.  I guess you could stick one in between Doric and Ionic.  Anything fatter than Tuscan would just be a waste of material and difficult to erect.

Adam

 
I would argue that the orders (especially when it comes to furniture design) are pretty much all about guiding easthetics and proportion, while engineering - strength of materials etc were far down the list of priorities. When the Romans perfected concrete and brick construction, it enabled them to stretch the envelope and build multi storied buildings with domes and arches. They still felt compelled to define the easthetics of the building with the orders. In many cases the orders in Roman building have no structural function whatsoever. They gradually evolved from a nessisary building element in Greece to more of a decoration in Rome till finally in the Renaisance the proportions within the orders took on more importance than the objects themselves. Thus Palladio could design a large country estate devoid of much in the way of ornament or collumns and yet base the design around solid principles of proportion and the proportions within the classic orders. Incidentally the branch of architecture that furniture design springs from would be classified as architecture of the interior. The three orders primarily used for interior work were doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Tuscan and composite are seldom found in interior applications.

George Walker
 
Adam,

After looking at my post I have to admit I think I got my wires crossed a bit (electrical engineer after all).  Anyway, I appreciate your explanation about the orders.  I am learning and I appreciate your help. 

Adam, George,

When a designer is creating a piece, what is driving him to use a particular order (or I assume combinations of)?  Do certain periods base their designs on a particular order?

What would have been the reason for anyone to have wanted to create or imply new orders for architecture as they apply to furniture? 

What order would be displayed in the Chartre cathedral?
 
When a designer is creating a piece, what is driving him to use a particular order (or I assume combinations of)?

George and I may disagree on this point, but I think at their root level, the orders suggest a certain structural capability when applied to furniture.  I think its also true, and maybe George will chime in on this, that the use of moldings almost always punctuates structural transitions, describing load transfers, explaining it, suggesting mass etc. 

So when we think of a Tuscan Order table, we think of that strong Italian man, with thick legs and a strong back.  There's capability there. Go ahead and put something heavy on it.  There'll be no artistic tension, no unease.  The design will be balanced. 

Conversely, we might seek a design that elongates and soars, like an Haute Couture model on a runway in Paris.  A thin, sinuous cabriole leg, curving up, lifts the eye (mass increasing with altitude).  Such a form almost appears as if it is in motion, leaping from the floor. 

So we choose the orders to convey a sense of capability, but also motion, and to some extent gender.  Mack Headley (like many before him) anthropomorphizes the orders, referring to them as the "maiden, young man, adult man", etc.

Do certain periods base their designs on a particular order?

It seems that way.  Queen Anne furniture seems to use the lighter orders.  Jacobean furniture uses the heavier.  But it can also vary piece to piece or maker to maker.  Some argue that the orders were unknown to furniture makers and that any similarity is mere coincidence.  We've had the same fruitless debate about golden section.  Its very difficult to know what period furniture makers knew or were thinking.  My view is that we can see golden section or the classical column orders represented, at least to some extent, so its smart of us to embrace their use.  Not everyone agrees.  I just want you to know that there are different views of this than what I'm writing.

My advice is to at least know what the orders are algebraically.  That way, you can check your own designs and see if what you are making is overly thick and blocky and will have a Fred Flintstone look or will look too flimsy (or be too flimsy).  Here's something I wrote a while ago that may be helpful:

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/blog3/Classical+Column+Orders.aspx

It includes a downloadable excel spreadsheet that defines the columns algebraically as a function of their shaft diameters.  It can be useful.  I've found it so.

Lastly, what I think is funny about the orders is how noticeable their use and misuse really is.  And this isn't something one needs to go to art school to recognize.  Precisely because the orders are based on the natural world and not arbitrary esthetic principles, we can usually see it when something "just looks wrong".  Our untrained eyes are accustomed to what "right" is.  Right is the proportion of our heads to our bodies, the diameter of a tree trunk etc etc.

Adam
 
I guess my initial post was tantamount to asking if anyone is knowledgeable about the world. One would expect diverse responses to a vaguely-worded question. While I'm not an engineer and don't really mind the direction this conversation is going, I should have been more specific as to the intent of the original post. I have used the orders as a rational guide for informing proportions. The fact that materials other than wood or stone can be used, and their properties exploited to greater advantage in design and construction, is interesting, but this is not why I asked about an additional order of architecture.

I am curious to know if there is an explanation for the innovative, quirky, and almost avant garde variations of standard forms, other than the usual explanations offered. It seems that much of this is chalked up to regional isolation, uneducated craftsmen, or an unsophisticated patron (or conversely, to a craftsman who was 'ahead of his time' or making the best with the materials at hand). I don't know if any of the distinctive variations actually coincide with a broader attempt at expanding the decorative arts' design vocabulary. I am also not quick to attribute unconventional designs to a new order of architecture--just curious if there was such a quest during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree (or column) here.
 
Mark,

I assumed that your original inquiry was about a sixth order in a historical context that may have had an impact on furniture design. You are correct that there were scores of variants and also many modifications to the first five also. I have to believe they were inspired by many factors. Many believed that architecture made a bold statement about a nation or government, the good old USA for example. It's not surprising that some versions sprung up around national identity. Some were born out of economy just to save on construction costs. Others pure ego, wanting to go down in posterity creating something original. I have to admit my knowledge of the orders stops with the first five. It's a pool of condenced design genius deep enough to keep me occupied for several lifetimes.

To Sams question earlier about identifying what classic orders were used is a good one. Investigating this, we find ourselves repeating history. The long chain of knowledge passed down between master and apprentice was broken by about 1820. We are left standing in awe of these really great furniture models and knowing they are classically inspired, yet having to guess at how they achieved such mastery. Much of what we know about the orders and classical design came from the renaissance. They faced the same dilemma. They recognized the genius and mastery of the Roman builders from antiquity, yet the knowledge chain that stretched from circa 600BC Greece to the fall of Rome was broken by the dark ages. They pieced the knowledge back together by scouring the ruins of Italy and doing a great deal of writing, arguing, theorizing, and applying what they learned. That’s largely the body of knowledge period woodworkers drew from to create the period furniture we admire today. Now we are trying to piece together the knowledge all over again. I don’t know any hard and fast rules for determining what order might have been used for what design problem. A couple of observations though. Work coming out of urban shops with greater influxes of trained workers from Europe is more likely to be tied more tightly to classical principles. As opposed to a rural shop more isolated with less access to design books and models (i.e. buildings or better quality furniture) to study. I don’t know of any periods or regions that tended more towards one order than another, except that Americans tended to favor the Doric and Ionic, vs. the Corinthian due to our more conservative tastes and the expense of carrying out the more lavish ornament to accompany the Corinthian. The William and Mary period tends to have a more bold use of architectural ornament but as the styles evolved the outward display became more subdued. For example the pediments that crown many case pieces from W&M and early Queen Anne can be definitely linked to the entablatures from a specific order. A convex (pulvinated) or bowed out frieze (the fascia just below the cornice) is usually paired with an Ionic order. I would take that as a strong clue that the Ionic order may have driven other proportional elements in such a piece. I’ve found it a great help to take the advice from the design books and study the orders in great detail, even drawing them. The process is will help train your eye and you will quickly learn that the orders have many layers of design information. Go beyond just looking at the height to diameter ratio of the columns. Look at the ornaments, mouldings, etc. You will quickly observe that the orders can be distinguished by more than just the capitals. These can often be a clue to unlocking this puzzle. 

George Walker
 
Mark,

I think I see what you're thinking.  If you look at Chester County PA stuff, early colonial, especially Northern European influenced stuff, you certainly do see a distinct and identifiable esthetic that isn't in line with the 5 orders.  The question is, is that stuff uniform enough to suggest it was guided by a set of proportion rules (like a column order) versus ignorance (as some furniture scholars have postulated)?

I don't know the answer.  But I have a hard time saying ignorance of real furniture is what shaped those pieces. 

Just thinking out loud, you could try to make a 6th order for stuff like that and lay it over various pieces to see how robust it is.  I think that would be very useful for reproduction furniture makers bored with Queen Anne highboys and Chippendale Tea tables.   

I hope I'm following you better this time.

Adam

 
While not directly addressing your question there is currently a PBS NOVA program called:Secrets of the Parthenon. They do discuss some of orders and the PBS website as an area dedicated to this program with a few links to related materials.

If you did no see the program and do not have access to it let me know and I may be able to help. Thanks for an interesting question.
 
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