Just a quick post this week as I’m currently busy with another sort of architecture– Minoan peak sanctuaries on Crete– for a presentation later this week.
Head of Herakles, former Bank of North America, 49 Yonge St. Toronto
Herakles watched over the comings and goings of the Bank of North America’s patrons from his perch over the main entrance. The building (now the Irish Embassy pub) is situated at 49 Yonge St, Toronto, at the northeast corner of Yonge and Wellington. The bank was built by Henry Langley in 1873-4 and designed in the Second Empire style by architect Thomas Lamb. Originally the main entrance to the bank was on the Wellington street facade, but by 1903 Yonge Street had become the major thoroughfare and the segmented (arched) pediment doorway was moved to the Yonge street side.
As mentioned, the building is the Second Empire style, a French-derived style originally brought to Toronto in the 1866 Government House.
This head can easily be identified as Herakles by the Nemean lion skin he wears. It’s hard to get a really good view of it from the ground, since Herakles is looking up and out rather than down, but you can see the lion’s jaws above Herakles’ forehead. No one has really determined why Herakles occurs here, although I would venture to suggest that he is playing an apotropaic (warding off danger) role. It is common on Classical buildings to see a god, goddess, or, especially, a gorgon, staring out from a temple’s pediment. Their purpose was to ward off evil. I would suggest that this is Herakles’ role here, although the question remains as to why Lamb chose the hero Herakles.
There is another, and quite different, Herakles above the Elgin and Winter Garden Theaters.
(Sources: McHugh 6-7, Murray 75-77.)
Head of Herakles, former Bank of North America, 49 Yonge St. Toronto
Apotropaic gorgon from the Greek Temple C, Selinus, Sicily, c. 540 BC
Anatomy of a column, First Pilgrim United Church, Hamilton, ON
To talk about architecture in any meaningful way it is necessary to know some of the terminology. I thought we would start with columns, since I named this blog ‘Pediments and Pilasters’, and pilasters are closely related to columns. Columns are perhaps the most easily identified aspect of classical architecture.
A column consists of three main parts: the base, the shaft and the capital. Certain types of bases, shafts and capitals combine to form particular types of columns. You may have heard of the Ionic, Doric and Corinthian orders. Each order consists of a set of particular architectural features that are usually used together, and the order an architect used can be determined from the elements that make up the column and entablature. Today, however, I will just explain the three main parts of the column using this photograph of an Ionic column.
The column base is just that, the base on which the column sits. Not all columns have a base; some sit directly on the stylobate, plinth or foundation. The main part of the column is the shaft. The shaft may be smooth or it may be fluted– that is, it may have vertical grooves extending all or part of the length of the shaft– or it may be decorated with carving. The columns of First Pilgrim United Church are fluted, but the columns of Central Presbyterian Church are unfluted. The columns from the Ontario Legislative Building use a variety of finishing techniques, including low-relief carving, fluting and nothing at all. The column shaft usually tapers towards the top (a curve called entasis) to maintain the column’s elegant proportions.
The shaft is topped off with the capital, a block which visually eases the transition between the shaft and the entablature above it. The capital is one of the key elements that will help you identify what order, or type, the column is. The photo used in our diagram has Ionic capitals. Other capitals which I will also eventually post about are the Doric, Composite and Corinthian capitals.
The columns support the entablature. The entablature for the Ionic and Doric orders is different, but it serves the same purpose: to hold up the beam that holds up the roof. Greek temples used a column-and-lintel (also called post-and-beam) style of building, so the columns surrounding the building supported the beams which spanned the building and held up the roof. Modern architecture doesn’t rely on post-and-beams, so these features are now more decorative than functional. We’ll look at the entablature in more detail when we start to explore the different architectural orders.
As you look around for columns, you will notice that they occur in a wide variety of forms. In an old church or cathedral you may see columns that look like a bundle of smaller, more slender columns called colonnettes. A row of columns in a straight line that supports an entablature, such as in our photo above, is called a colonnade. A row of columns that creates a porch is called a portico, and if that extends around three or four sides of a building or a garden it is called a peristyle. Columns that are attached to a building are said to be engaged and a column that has been ‘flattened’ against a building to become rectangular is called a pilaster. When the row of columns is against a solid wall, it is called a blind colonnade; if the space between columns is filled with windows it becomes a glazed colonnade. One of my favourite buildings, the Landed Banking and Loan Company building in Hamilton, Ontario, is a great example of a glazed colonnade. A colonnade supporting a series of arches is called an arcade— but more about that when we look at arches.
So that, dear reader, is everything you need to know about columns in a nutshell. If you find it all a bit daunting, no worries: there is no quiz and not every entry is going to feature this many technical terms! I have hundreds of photographs of beautiful columns that I plan to share with you over the course of this blog and I hope it will encourage you to look for beautiful columns as you go about your travels.
Anatomy of a column
Landed Banking & Loan Company building, Hamilton, ON
Columns in Ephesus, Asia Minor (modern Turkey)
Ontario Legislative Building, Toronto, ON
Central Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, ON
A note on photos: Click on the photos to enlarge. All photos are from my personal collection. You are welcome to use them for personal, education purposes only (and with appropriate credit). Please do not repost them, publish them or use them for any commercial purposes.
I should begin this new blog with some philosophical treatise on the nature of Classical architecture. But I’m not going to. Instead, I am going to share a delicious architectural detail I discovered on a cold, windy day in downtown Toronto. This grouchy-looking bird tops an engaged column framing a window on the south side of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) building at 25 King St. W, Toronto.
Note the amazing details that have gone into this. The bird’s wings are spread back at a 90 degree angle to support the bricks above. The feathers have been carefully differentiated. His expressive eyes have been deeply carved and his head positioned so that he looks down on the viewer. I should note that this window is very tall so his perch does appear to be quite lofty. I find the basket-weave capital atop the spiral-fluted column evocative of a bird’s nest. He is matched with a similar column and bird on the left side of the window. The birds’ menacing looks threaten anyone who dares to mess with your money.
Banks are great places to look for details like this. Don’t forget to look up!
Alison Innes 