Frieze Frame...

While I was back home I checked on the progress of the exterior details - the columns, capitals and frieze bands. Konstantinos, our master carver, had finished carving the prototype for the two large columns on either side of the central portion of the manor.

Above: pictures/details of the upside down capital for the main columns. He has carved a quarter of it, as the other three quarters will be direct replications.

Below: The boxing for the frieze band. 

I designed the frieze band detail myself.

Above: The profile for the frieze band

The boxing is a positive detail for the plaster work, which will be painted in fibreglass and then cast in latex to make a negative mold. The negative mold will then be used to create the 100m of frieze band required to encircle the house at the midfloor level (seen sitting on the columns below):

Usually a frieze band goes at the top of a building forming the middle part of the entablature...

We have two frieze bands, one at the top below the modillions/dentils which will render the entablature to look something like this:

But we also have a mid-floor frieze band such as seen in these buildings below:

Above: The Royal Albert Hall has several frieze bands at various levels.

Some of the inspiration for our frieze band design:

 

Capital Idea!

We have just seen the first prototype for the Scamozzi capitals for the manor. It has been carved by Konstantinos, our master carver for the project. We gave him some old prints and asked him to create a capital in keeping with the neoclassical design for the manor and this what what he came up with. We love it. Now it has been approved they will start working on the stone capitals.

Below: Some of the pictures we gave Konstantinos.

Throughout the project we have a range of various columns. There are free-standing columns, engaged columns (where at least 1/3rd of the column is embedded into a wall), and pilasters (planted columns on a wall, resembling engaged columns but square). There are four different sizes of each of these columns, and each has a separately carved capital and base to ensure that components remain in scale (something very important to a Neoclassical eye).

Above and Below: The creation of a wooden prototype, to scale, prior to creating stone columns.

We took a long time ensuring that not only was there an entasis to the column, but that the entasis was also in proportion with the overall aesthetic of the manor (as there are multiple formulae for working out entasis based on a column's height, which will produce bulkier vs more elongated columns). These examples of entasis below demonstrate the curves well, but as you can see, produce a column that is too stocky...

Entasis is a classic trick of creating a subtle convex bulge throughout the length of the column (so it is nor the same girth all the way up, not does it simply taper). This actually makes a column more pleasing to the eye. Hero of Alexandria, the ancient mathematician and engineer (10-70AD) explains that entasis corrects the optical illusion of concavity in the columns which the human eye would make if the correction was not made.