The parts of a façade: avant-corps, pediment, cornice and dormer

A classical façade is read from the bottom up, and the names of its parts follow that order: the plinth nearest the ground, the rustication on the ground floor, the portal around the main entrance, the string courses between the storeys, the window surrounds around the windows, the balcony, the avant-corps (risalit) that projects from the façade, the cornice under the roof, the pediment at the top of the avant-corps and the dormers in the roof. The names come from ancient temples and Renaissance palaces and are used for stone buildings from the 16th century to the early 20th century.

Facts

Why the façade has a name for everything

A façade is the face of the building towards the street, and in the classical tradition it was constructed according to rules that architects learned from ancient temples. The parts of the temple, with its stepped platform, columns, entablature and gable, were translated during the Renaissance into the storeys of the palace: the ground floor became a plinth, the storeys above were given pilasters or columns, and the roof moulding became a heavy cornice. That is why an apartment building from the 1890s in Stockholm has the same vocabulary as a palace in Rome. The temple's own parts are shown on the temple diagram in the basics.

The diagram of a façade below has eleven parts that you can point to, read about and test yourself on. The photo tab shows the same parts on real buildings. All the names can also be found in the glossary.

From the bottom: plinth, rustication and portal

The plinth is the foot of the façade, usually of hewn stone that withstands damp and knocks, and it likes to project a little from the wall. Above it the ground floor often has rustication: masonry with roughly hewn stones or deep joints that give a heavy, stable impression. Renaissance palaces in Florence had rough rustication on the ground floor and ever smoother stone further up. On the Palazzo Rucellai the rustication is instead flat and incised, with pilasters in front. In the stone city of the 19th century rustication was often imitated in render, with grooves meant to look like joints.

The portal is the main entrance when it is marked out as something more than a door: with an arch, a stone surround, columns or sculpture. It lies almost always on the central axis of the façade and shows where the building's most important rooms are.

The middle: string courses, windows and avant-corps

The string course is a horizontal moulding or band that marks the boundary between two storeys. It divides the façade into layers and makes it easier to read. The most important storey, the piano nobile, is usually one flight up and has the tallest windows and the richest surrounds. The window surround is the frame around the window, often with a small pediment or a straight moulding above. On the Palazzo Farnese in Rome the windows of the piano nobile alternate between triangular and rounded pediments, a pattern that has been copied throughout Europe.

The avant-corps (risalit) is a section of the façade that projects, usually in the centre or at the corners. A central avant-corps breaks a long front, marks the entrance and gives the building a centre; corner avant-corps frame it. The avant-corps is often crowned by a pediment and may have its own columns or pilasters. The balcony, with a railing of stone or wrought iron, likes to sit in the middle of the avant-corps above the portal, where a prince or an orator could show himself.

The windows sit in vertical rows, axes, and antiquarians and architects often describe a façade by means of them: a façade of eleven axes with a central avant-corps of three means eleven windows across, of which the middle three are on a projecting section. Symmetry around the central axis is the basic rule of the classical façade, and it is often the first thing to be broken when a building has been altered.

At the top: cornice, pediment and roof

The cornice is a projecting moulding that leads rainwater away and finishes the façade at the top. The heaviest is at the eaves and is called the main cornice; on the Palazzo Farnese Michelangelo designed such a large cornice that it crowns the whole calm façade. The pediment is the triangular or segmental gable field above an avant-corps, a portico or a window. The framed field inside is called the tympanum and may be filled with sculpture, as on ancient temples.

Above the cornice the roof takes over. A mansard roof with dormers provides room for a whole storey in the attic, and the dormers, small projections with their own roof and window, often sit in the same axes as the windows below. How the roof types differ is explained in the guide to roof types.

Façades to practise on

Three buildings in the app show the parts clearly. The Palais Garnier in Paris, the opera house by Charles Garnier from 1875, has paired columns, gilding and sculpture in every part. The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, designed by Friedrich August Stüler and completed in 1866, is Neo-Renaissance with round-arched windows and a clear division into storeys. The Riksdag building on Helgeandsholmen has a semicircular façade with columns facing Norrbro, rustication on the ground floor and heavy window surrounds.

All three belong to historicism, which used the classical façade more generously than any earlier period; read more in the guide to historicism in architecture. Functionalism did away with almost all the parts. When Adolf Loos built his house in Vienna without window surrounds, it caused a scandal. Knowing the names makes it easier to see both what a façade has and what it lacks, and thereby to date the house.

Read the façade in this order

Exercise

What is the part of the façade that projects, often in the centre or at the corners, called?