Giant order

The giant order (also Great Order ) is a term used in architecture. He states that an order, namely a column, half-columns, piers or pilasters two or more storeys above engages a building. It is therefore always of vertical architectual elements with base and capital.

In classical, derived from classical antiquity architecture usually ruled an order just a basement. Has a building several storeys, each storey are several orders placed over another, Doric in the order, Ionic and Corinthian (such as in the courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome), it is called this order superposition. However, precursors of the giant order can be found as early as the late Roman architecture. In modern times, the giant order, mainly developed by Michelangelo and Palladio, an important element of the facade design, at first mainly in the Italian Renaissance: the facade of a superior pillars stretch over several floors and usually carry a bulky cornice. An early, significant example is Michelangelo's curator palace on the Capitol in Rome. In the coined by Renaissance and Baroque palace architecture often encounters the giant order above a podium -like ground floor zone ( east facade of the Louvre in Paris, honorary courtyard façade of the Würzburg Residence, Buckingham Palace, London).

The giant order was used in all architectural eras and styles, which refer to the ancient architecture: Renaissance, Palladian, Baroque and Rococo, Classicism in 1800, buildings in classical forms in the historicism of the 19th century, Neoclassicism of the 20th century, quote the inappropriate use also in the postmodern era.