Pillar, column or pilaster? The difference explained

The difference between a pillar and a column is that a column is round and built to one of the classical orders, with base, shaft and capital, whereas pillar is the general word for a vertical load-bearing support, often square or polygonal. A pilaster is a flat pillar that projects a little from the wall; it has a base and capital but seldom carries anything and mainly divides up the façade. In everyday speech the words are used interchangeably, but in architecture they mean different things.

Facts

The column: round and classical

A column has three parts. The base stands on the floor or on a plinth, the shaft is the long, round body, and the capital at the top receives the load from the beam above. The shaft is often fluted with vertical grooves and tapers towards the top, and in Greek columns it swells slightly at the middle, so that it does not look hollowed from a distance. You can point out the parts on the column diagram in the basics and on the diagram below.

What makes a column a column is that it follows an order: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan or Composite. The order determines the shape of the capital and the proportions between thickness and height. On the Parthenon the Doric columns are a little over ten metres tall and nearly two metres thick at the base. How the orders differ is explained in the guide to column orders. The word column comes from the Latin columna.

The pillar: anything that carries

Pillar is the broader word. It means a vertical support that carries something above it, and it can have almost any shape: square, octagonal, round or made up of several parts. A pillar does not need to follow any order and needs no capital. All columns are therefore pillars, but far from all pillars are columns.

Medieval churches are full of pillars that are not columns. In Romanesque churches they are often massive and built of masonry; in Durham Cathedral, clusters of piers alternate with round piers decorated with incised zigzag and spiral patterns. The Gothic style gathered slender shafts into clusters, so that each part follows a rib up into the vault; see the cathedral diagram and the guide to vaults and arches. In modern architecture people speak of pillars of concrete or steel, and Le Corbusier's slender supports that lift the house off the ground are called pilotis.

The pilaster: a pillar in the wall

A pilaster looks like a column that has been pressed flat against the wall. It has a base, shaft and capital following the same orders, but it projects only a little from the wall and for the most part carries nothing; the wall behind does the work. The pilaster is a way of giving an ordinary wall the rhythm and dignity of classical architecture.

The Romans used pilasters on their buildings, and the Renaissance made them one of its most important tools. The Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, designed by Leon Battista Alberti and built around 1446–1451, has three storeys of pilasters in different orders that divide the façade into a regular grid. Michelangelo had pilasters run through two or three storeys in what is called a giant order, among other places on St Peter's Basilica. In Stockholm the façade of Riddarhuset (the House of Nobility) is divided by tall pilasters, a masterpiece of Dutch-influenced classicism.

Half-columns, lesenes and other intermediate forms

Between the column and the pilaster there is the half-column: round like a column but half embedded in the wall. The Romans placed half-columns in front of the arches of the Colosseum and along the sides of the temple known as the Maison Carrée, where only the porch has freestanding columns. If you see round columns along a wall, check whether there is air behind them.

A lesene resembles a pilaster but has no base or capital. It is a flat, vertical band in the wall and is typical of Romanesque churches, where lesenes and small round arches under the eaves divide up the façade. Many of these words can be found in the glossary, with explanations and references to the diagrams where they appear.

How to choose the right word

Ask three questions. Is the support round, with a base, shaft and capital according to a classical order? Then it is a column. Is it freestanding or set in the wall? If it is set in the wall and flat, it is a pilaster; if it is round, a half-column. Does it follow no order, or is it angular or compound? Then it is a pillar.

The words also say something about the period. Columns and pilasters belong to antiquity, the Renaissance, the Baroque and Neoclassicism, whereas medieval churches and Modernist buildings have almost only pillars. When Greek architecture let the columns genuinely carry the load, they became, in Roman hands, increasingly decoration in front of a load-bearing wall, and that difference lives on in everything built since.

How to tell them apart

Exercise

A flat, slightly projecting part of a façade with base and capital, which divides up the wall but does not carry a load. What is it called?