Selected Bibliography Architecture - Form Space and Order | Page 145

VE RTICAL LINEAR ELEMENT S

Palazzo Antonini, Udine, Italy, 1556,
Andrea Palladio

Tetrastyle Atrium, House of the Silver Wedding,
Pompeii, 2nd century B.C.
Four columns can establish the corners of a discrete volume of space within a
larger room or setting. Supporting a canopy, the columns form an aedicule, a
diminutive pavilion that serves as a shrine or the symbolic center of a space.
Traditional Roman houses typically were organized about an atrium open to
the sky and surrounded by a roof structure supported at the corners by four
columns. Vitruvius termed this a tetrastyle atrium.

During the Renaissance, Andrea Palladio incorporated the tetrastyle theme in
the vestibules and halls of a number of villas and palazzi. The four columns not
only supported the vaulted ceiling and the floor above but also adjusted the
dimensions of the rooms to Palladian proportions.
In the Sea Ranch condominium units, four posts along with a sunken floor and
an overhead plane define an intimate aedicular space within a larger room.

Condominium Unit No. 5, Sea Ranch, California, 1966, MLTW

130 / A R C H I TE C TU R E : F O R M , S PA C E , & O R D E R