Classic

Hello my fancy friends, it’s so good to talk to you again, and we are tackling one of the biggest, most quintessential interior design topics today. When I was studying design in college, a long, long time ago; there were several history-focused design professors that expressed the opinion that Ancient Greek and Roman Architecture (otherwise known as Classical Architecture) was the ultimate style of design, and that no other time period or design technique could come close to it’s beauty and sophistication. Are you picking up on my sarcasm? I was always more interested in modern design, so this point of view confused me for a very long time. To be clear, we are talking about fluted columns, friezes, pediments, egg-and-dart molding, the Pantheon, the Parthenon, and the Acropolis. And if you’re still lost, just picture you local state capital building, or the White House for that matter. Although, to be clear, that’s neoclassical, the style’s second wave in the late 1700’s. Both the original aesthetic and its revivals have become synonymous with wealth, dignity, proliferation, and masculinity. But what is it that makes this look so revered, and more importantly, how can you use its careful planning and obsessive calculations to help your home look more pulled together? Today, we are looking at the basics of classical architecture, why it looks the way it does, and how to bring it into your home without looking old fashioned.

But first, let’s talk about the Color Of The Week. The royal family is a topic of conversation across all media platforms, and whether you love or hate them, they are hard to escape. Most recently, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex has released a memoir titled “Spare.” There’s tons of quotes and clips being shared all over the internet, but you can also read the book for yourself. Now, Prince Harry is quite possibly one of the most famous and iconic redheads in modern time, and as a ginger myself, I think it’s important to honor this rare hair color, what makes us unique is always something to celebrate. Redheadeds are often the butt of cruel jokes and Harry is one of the few men in the public eye to make being a ginger enviable. Sherwin Willians Truepenny SW 6355 is a stunning, bold, but still earthy orange that is the perfect color to bring into any room. Try pairing this rusty shade with soft blue, light taupe, mauve, and oxblood to create a truly ginger palette. Your curiosity will thank you.

When we see old fashion trims, mouldings, carvings, and architecture, they can inspire a sense of history and charm that other styles of interior design lack. But when these styles were born, many years ago (think BC dates), it was out of necessity. I mentioned this in our trims episode called “You Should See Me In A Crown.” There were lots of wide and highly pronounced seams between pieces of material, whether it was wood, stone, or even plaster; so trims and decorative patterns helped conceal these. There’s even evidence that when structures where made of wood, they were covered in elaborate clay or terra cotta decorations to provide fireproofing, so everything was practical. When we see these things on building from our lifetime, modern building technology has lots of other solutions to help minimize seams and provide fireproofing, so it’s decidedly just for the aesthetic. And there is nothing wrong with being nostalgic for a time period none of us lived through, I mean that with the utmost sincerity, I promise. I get nostalgic for the late 1970’s all the time. 

But, the important thing is that we take away from this grand tradition of architecture the heart and soul of its philosophy, not just the superficial stylistic flairs. In order to do that, we have to understand what we are emulating, so let’s start with the Greek Orders, or columns - sometimes people call them poles, which drives me nuts. These are the vertical structural elements that hold up a building, and they’re still used in a more practical way today. But, in Ancient Greece, because steel hadn’t been invented yet, most major public structures, like houses of worship and stadiums, were made out of giant chunks of carved stone. Greece has a very rocky terrain and there was a tone of natural limestone available to ancient builders, so this was just the Greeks being resourceful and using what they had available to them. These structures relied on what’s called post and lintel construction (not lentil, it’s not a legume). This is two or more vertical posts or columns with a horizontal element spanning between them. Think about Stonehenge in the UK - this is the most basic building construction technique and it’s been around for a very long time. But stone can only stretch so far before it needs another vertical support, or column, so old buildings had a lot of columns. And again, we still have them today, but because of the strength and lighter weight of steel, we don’t need as many vertical supports or columns. Right, you’re gonna starting saying column and not pole? Please, do me favor, on that one.

Anyways, the Ancient Greeks were obsessed with the look of their buildings, especially their major community gathering spaces. When I hear architectural historians speak on the merit of Greek architecture, I get the sense they are obsessed with the so called “system of logic” that drives every decision. And we know this is all based heavily in math, the Greeks were often calculating things on site using algebraic equations. But what was the end goal? Where did these calculations come from, and what were they trying to achieve? 

In turns out, the driving force behind most Greek buildings was far more spiritual and supernatural in nature. They were motivated by the idea of Genius Loci or the spirit of the space. They believed buildings were a form of worship to the God or Goddess that inhabited the land, and if the deity was not properly honored, retribution was sure to follow in the form of natural disasters. So design and construction were a matter of religious and spiritual devotion. The design intent for buildings were often conceived during prayer and included many sculptures that served as altars within the building. But what seemed to be the most important thing to the Greeks was this idea of height and symmetry. The building needed to looking like a giant, perfectly plumb and square beacon. They used lots of proportion tricks and techniques to make these structures look hyper symmetrical, perfectly straight, and humungous. They thought a lot about perspective and how the building would look from different angles, whether it was being viewed from far away in another part of the city or how it looked when we get right up close. The buildings themselves and the elements within were often completely skewed in real life, bulging out at the bottom and sides to work against the eye’s natural sense of perspective, and seemingly cut through space to stand straighter than humanly possible.

But within the detail of every building, we find more complex proportional systems that determined the height and width of every little tiny detail, based on one major element - the height of the column. From the base to the top of the capital, this height becomes the driving force behind every other element in the room. These proportions do varying slightly based on which Order style you are using, and there are  three of these styles, although there are additional variations that get left out often. So there’s Doric, Ionic,  and Corinthian. And these are almost always listed in this order, doric first, Corinthian last, which is helpful in remembering their level of decoration and detail. Doric is the most simple and plain, Corinthian is highly elaborate, and Ionic is in the middle. These are each named for the regions where they originated,  but over time, have been deployed in revival buildings based on their level of intricacy. The best resource I can give you, if you really want to dive into the details, is a book called The American Vignola by William R. Ware. 

This has so much information on the design of classical buildings, but I want to highlight a few key items that can be useful for anyone who’s making changes to the interior of their home. I tend to use the Ionic proportion system for reference, and this is a good tactic if your intent is to not emulate classical architecture in its superficial aesthetic, but to use it’s systems to help you create a contemporary home, because Ionic is the happy medium of the three most common styles. Doric can look a little short and chunky, and Corinthian can look a little spindly at times.

So the first thing you’ll want to note for yourself is the height of your ceiling. You may not have visible columns in your home, these can buried in the walls or there many be a different structural system all together, but if there were columns, they would stretch from the floor to the ceiling. Whatever that ceiling height is, should be divided by the number nine. So you can do this in inches, centimeters, feet, yards, whatever system you want to use because it’s all about relative proportion. So, our ceiling height gets divided into nine equal parts, and you’ll want to note the measurement for one single part. For example, if our ceiling is 9 feet tall, one unit is one foot. If we have a twelve foot high ceiling, it’s 1’-4”. This dimension is our X factor. Everything else in the room is going to be either a multiple or fraction of this number. So for starters, you wall base, should be one half the X unit, so that means if we stick with with the 12’-0” ceilings, we have 8” high wall bases, which is a little higher than what’s standard. Most homes have around a 4” high wall base, and the higher the base, the more traditional looking the space. If you chose to have any kind of crown moulding at the top of your wall, that would also be 1/2 an X unit. If you want to have a ceiling pop-up, that should follow the height of the entablature, which is two and a quarter units, so a full three feet above out 12’-0” ceilings, totally 15’-0” (because 1’-4” doubled is 2’-8” plus another four inches is 3’-0”). Any door frame in this classically proportioned home relates to the dimension of an exterior architrave, which is 1/4 of a unit, so we would plan for a 4” thick frame around any door in our example home. If you chose to have a chair rail, that height should be 1/3 of the total height of the room, 4’-0” from the floor in our house. If you want to have an arched opening in your home, like the entry to the kitchen or the connection between the living and dining room, the classical formula for this is 4 and 1/2 units wide and 8 and 1/4 units high - that totals to 6’-0” wide by 11’-0” high - which again, is a lot larger than a typical three or four foot doorway that you see in a home. But these proportions lend themselves to grand spaces, nothing is apologizing for being present. They are different from what we see in a standard builder grade home. 

All of these proportions actually tie into a much greater and esoteric concept that is the Golden Ratio, which is something that gets taught pretty consistently in design school, although this idea is controversial and often disputed, so let’s talk about it. I want to make this as simple to understand as possible, because although it’s history is rooted in math and the advanced studies of Euclid, there is so much about this rule that’s just plain intuitive, but we have to talk about the history of its concept. 

The Golden Ratio is a relative proportion system, meaning it’s all about how two or more sized objects compare to each other. This is so helpful for when you want to embrace asymmetry, or why you may see something asymmetrical that just looks great, or if it isn’t following the Golden Ratio, why it might look unbalanced. The number itself is straight forward - one object is 1.1618 times larger than the object before it. But the structure of this concept is really the idea that any item, we can use the example of a rectangle, but it will work with anything, an item can be divided into two unequal parts and still look balanced and aesthetically pleasing if the smaller part is the same proportion to the larger part, as the larger part is to both pieces put together. And this can keep being applied to object after object to create a bigger sequence. This is very close to chopping something into thirds, but not quite even thirds, which is probably what gives it its visual interest. There are claims this growth pattern occurs in nature, like the varied sizes of petals on a flower, or the classic example of a nautilus shell. And we see this rectangular proportion show up in the front facades of Greek temples, in the shape of the Orders, it’s even found in the structure of classical music. But the question become, was this done on a subconscious, intuitive level, or was this just another equation the Greeks used in the design process. What you think? Let me know your thoughts in an Apple podcasts review, I love hearing from you. Until next time fancies, take care yourself.