In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building.[ Colonnade from Encyclopædia Britannica] Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curved. The space enclosed may be covered or open. In St. Peter's Square in Rome, Bernini's great colonnade encloses a vast open elliptical space.
When in front of a building, screening the door (Latin porta), it is called a portico. When enclosing an open court, a peristyle. A portico may be more than one rank of columns deep, as at the Pantheon in Rome or the of Ancient Greece.
When the intercolumniation is alternately wide and narrow, a colonnade may be termed "araeosystyle" (Gr. αραιος, "widely spaced", and συστυλος, "with columns set close together"), as in the case of the western porch of St Paul's Cathedral and the east front of the Louvre.
History
Colonnades (formerly as colonade) have been built since ancient times and interpretations of the classical model have continued through to modern times, and Neoclassical styles remained popular for centuries.
At the
British Museum, for example, porticos are continued along the front as a colonnade. The porch of columns that surrounds the
Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., (in style a
peripteral classical temple) can be termed a colonnade.
[ Student Resource Glossary] As well as the traditional use in buildings and monuments, colonnades are used in sports stadiums such as the
Harvard Stadium in
Boston, where the entire horseshoe-shaped stadium is topped by a colonnade. The longest colonnade in the United States, with 36 Corinthian columns, is the New York State Education Building in Albany, New York.
[. Emporis. Retrieved on 2009-5-23.]
Notable colonnades
Ancient world
File:Luxor Temple R07.jpg|The colonnade of Amenhotep III at the Luxor temple
File:Reconstruction of Stoa of Attalos (3357410911).jpg| The Stoa of Attalos in the reconstructed Ancient Agora of Athens
File:Palmyra, Syria - 2.jpg|The Great Colonnade at Palmyra, Syria
File:Baalbek-Jupiter.jpg|Baalbeck, Lebanon
File:Colonnade in Ephesus.jpg|Ephesus
File:Arches,_and_a_Plan_of_a_Church_at_Thessalonica_-_Pococke_Richard_-_1745_(cropped).jpg|Las Incantadas colonnade, demolished in 1864 by Emmanuel Miller
File:Piliers_de_tutelle_(Bordeaux_1669)_(cropped).JPG|Piliers de Tutelle, Gallo-Roman portico demolished in 1677, France
Renaissance and Baroque periods
File:Colonnade in Palacio de Carlos V.JPG|Palace of Charles V, Granada (1527)
File:St Peter's Square, Vatican City - April 2007.jpg|Bernini's colonnade St. Peter's Square, Vatican City (1660s)
File:St. Peter's Square, 1992.jpg|Detail of St. Peter's Square colonnade
File:Louvre Kolonnaden.JPG|Colonnade of the Louvre, Paris (1670)
Neoclassical
File:P1030420 Paris VIII église de la Madeleine colonnes façade occidentale rwk.JPG|The church of La Madeleine, Paris (consecrated 1842)
File:GPOSydneyInterior2007.jpg|Vaulted colonnade in the General Post Office, Sydney (1890s)
File:Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University.jpg|Main entrance to the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge (19th century)
File: Brussels 3 157.jpg|Colonnade of the Arcade du Cinquantenaire, Brussels (1905)
File:NYSED.jpg|New York State Education Building, Albany, New York (1912)
Modern interpretations
File:Palacio da Alvorada Exterior.jpg|Palácio da Alvorada, by Oscar Niemeyer, in Brasília, Brazil (1958)
File:Johnson spanish music 1916 3.jpg|Lebus Court, Bridges Hall of Music, Pomona College, by Myron Hunt in Claremont, California, United States (1915)
File:Scripps College for Women-10.jpg|Balch Hall, Scripps College by Sumner Hunt and Gordon Kaufmann in Claremont, California, United States (1929)
File:Colonnade, Mission and First (2024)-L1005696.jpg|Colonnade on the corner of Mission and First in downtown San Francisco
File:Station of Venezia Santa Lucia (7803866220).jpg|Modern colonnade at the Santa Lucia rail station, Venice
See also
