Fluting (architecture)

Fluting in architecture and the decorative arts consists of shallow grooves running along a surface.

The term typically refers to the curved grooves (flutes) running vertically on a column shaft or a pilaster, but is not restricted to those two applications.

[1] Fluted columns are common in the tradition of classical architecture but were not invented by the ancient Greeks, but rather passed down or learned from the Mycenaeans or the Egyptians.

[2] Especially in stone architecture, fluting distinguishes the column shafts and pilasters visually from plain masonry walls behind.

[10] Spiral fluting is a rather rare style in Roman architecture, and even rarer in the later classical tradition.

Often vertical fluting is interrupted by horizontal bands, suggesting binding holding a group of stems together.

One of the earliest remaining examples of fluting in limestone columns can be seen at Djoser's necropolis in Saqqara, built by Imhotep in the 27th century BC.

They demonstrate that the plain columns, made of several circular "drums", were put into place before the flutes were carved to ensure the grooves matched up perfectly.

A now isolated Ionic column at the Temple of Apollo, Didyma shows this; only part of the top drum has been fluted.

Another unfinished Ionic drum section in the agora at Kos has been marked up for fluting, which never took place.

[17] There has been considerable modern exploration of the mathematical techniques used to create models of templates for fluting.

The practical problems for the masons were increased by the variable girth of the shafts, which both tapered overall and had the entasis swelling in the middle.

By the mid-6th century BC shafts were thicker, and 20 became settled as the number of flutes, thereafter very rarely deviated from when using the Doric order.

Greek Doric columns had no base, and this prevented the flutes, which ended in a sharp arris, being worn down by people brushing past.

[23] Despite Ionic columns of a given height being slimmer than Doric ones, they have more flutes, with 24 being settled on as the standard, after early experiments.

[25] Ionic and Corinthian flutes are also deeper, some approaching a semi-circle, and are usually terminated at the top and bottom by a semi-circular scoop, followed by a small distance where the column has its full circular profile, or indeed swells.

Sections of column shafts with relatively shallow vertical concave fluting were used in India, especially in early rock-cut architecture, as at the Buddhist Ajanta Caves.

[30] Spiral fluting is sometimes found in the same way, as inside Cave 26 at Ajanta, from the late 5th or early 6th century.

Fluted columns, some with entasis, were one of the options available to Chinese architects and cave-carvers (survivals are mostly in Buddhist rock-carved shrines) in the 3rd to 6th centuries AD.

Some engaged columns were also topped by quasi-capital with volutes, but usually curling up, rather than down as in the Ionic; in some cases these were also at the bottom of the shaft.

Byzantine taste appreciated rare and expensive types of stone, and like to see these in round and polished form.

[33] The entrance of the Castel del Monte, Apulia, Italy, an imperial castle from the 1240s, has very thin fluted pilasters under a pediment, in an early and rather shaky attempt to revive classical forms.

But columns were used sparingly in the Early Renaissance, except for courtyard arcades, and fluting is slow to appear.

The Pazzi Chapel in Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi (1429) has plain columns (outside) but cable-fluted pilasters inside and out.

Fluting, very often convex, is also found in various media in the decorative arts, including metalware, wooden furniture, glass and pottery.