Tholos (architecture)

It differs from a monopteros (Ancient Greek:ὁ μονόπτερος from the Polytonic: μόνος, only, single, alone, and τὸ πτερόν, wing), a circular colonnade supporting a roof but without any walls, which therefore does not have a cella (room inside).

An increasingly large series of round buildings were constructed in the developing tradition of classical architecture until Late antiquity, which are covered here.

According to A. W. Lawrence, by the 4th century BC, "their more or less secular functions gave partial exemption from the austere conventions that governed the design of temples".

[4] No Greek tholos except the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates remains anything like intact, with most known only by excavation of their distinctive circular foundations, and other parts found lying on the site.

[5] The large building known as "the tholos" (but also "the parasol")[6] in the centre of Athens, just off the agora, at the least served as the dining-hall for the executive group of the boule, a council of 500 citizens chosen by lot from ten "tribes" to run daily affairs of the city, since a kitchen leads off the main circular hall.

[8] Inside six columns supported the original conical roof, which seems have been covered with terracotta tiles round the lower parts, and perhaps bronze sheets higher up, leading to an acroterion at the apex, as seems to have been the case in the Philippeion.

[10] The original building, from not long after the Persian sack of Athens in 489–479 BC is "very plain",[11] with no exterior columns, showing "utter economy [in] its construction".

It used the Corinthian order, still rather an innovation, for a ring of 14 columns inside, and the "extraordinary dainty" version of the capitals here was probably an influential model for later buildings.

The largest was that made about 600 BC for King Alyattes of Lydia (in modern Turkey), the father of Croesus, which dominates the elite cemetery site now called Bin Tepe.

There was a vertical wall at the base, then a conical roof, much of which survived until 1835, when excavations led by Charles Texier using labour from the French Navy collapsed it.

Though independent, the Numidian kingdom was increasingly involved in Mediterranean power politics, and an architect familiar with classical architecture has surrounded the vertical section of wall at the base with engaged columns in the Doric order, "heavily proportioned and with smooth shafts, beneath a cavetto cornice".

The whole exterior was, and very largely still is, covered with a stone facing, the straight cone of the upper part (except for a flat top) formed into steps, like the pyramids of Egypt.

[29] The Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania, long called the Tombeau de la Chrétienne ("Tomb of the Christian Woman"), is very similar, but a good deal larger and with Ionic columns around the base.

[31] The large tombs of elite Roman families shared some of the characteristics of weekend cottages, with gardens, orchards, kitchens, and spacious apartments.

From ancient writers it is clear that there was greenery, probably trees, growing on top of the upper parts, of an artificial mound or dome, which fell in and has not been restored to date.

Augustus set the precedent for a number of circular imperial tombs over the following centuries; some either became, or were built into, Christian churches, which have generally survived more intact.

[40] The Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna, of 520, uses Roman construction techniques but is in an impressive but unclassical style, possibly borrowing from Syria; Theoderic the Great was an Ostrogoth "barbarian" ruler.

[41] The tholos was revived in one of the most influential buildings in Renaissance architecture, the Tempietto in a courtyard of the church of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome.

It is a small building whose innovation, as far as Western Europe was concerned, was to use the tholos form as the base for a dome above; this may have reflected a Byzantine structure in Jerusalem over the tomb of Christ.

This pairing of tholos, now called a "drum" or "tholobate", and dome became extremely popular raised high above main structures which were often based on the Roman temple.

The pairing of drum and dome was initially mostly used for churches, as at Les Invalides in Paris (1676) and St Paul's Cathedral in London (1697), but later other buildings, and continued until the 20th century at least.

[44] The Radcliffe Camera, built as a library for Oxford University in 1737, is one of relatively few large buildings after the Renaissance to use a purely circular plan, with little emphasis on the entrance, in a classical style that is full of complexities and looks back to Italian Mannerist architecture.

[45] The Mausoleum in the park at Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, by Nicholas Hawksmoor (completed 1742), gives a "tragic" interpretation of the theme by making the columns large and close together and the dome low.