Speaker 1: Hey guys, Brent Holt, Build Show, talking today about columns. Everything you wanted to know about columns, but were afraid to ask, today on the Build Show. Columns, right? There's all different types. They're on commercial buildings, they're on residential buildings, they're on, you know, Victorian houses, they're on arts and crafts houses, they're everywhere, right? But if you are a student of it, you realize that all of these columns types are different. There's big, tall columns and they have crazy capitals to them. There's simple columns and there's houses that sometimes just have just these square framed columns that doesn't even look like a column. What's going on with that? What I want to do is break down some of these differences and the simplest breakdown is vernacular and classical, okay? The classical columns are the typical ones you see with the base and the capital and the shaft, right? They're at the White House, right? They have Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, you know, all the crazy capitals. Now there's also what's called a vernacular column, okay? And on simple houses and on buildings that we've worked on here in Texas, sometimes they're just a square column, maybe with a chamfered edge that is technically a column, but it doesn't really look like a column. And what's happening is there is a difference between houses that are built in the country versus houses that are built in the city. Asher Benjamin, when he wrote his book, The Country Builder's Assistance, he was really writing to the country builder to help them understand how to do classical things. There is a language to columns, okay? They tell you whether the house is really high style. They tell you whether the house is simple. And so those vernacular columns, which end up being very simple and clean with just chamfered edges can still communicate scale. We worked on a historic house from the 1860s in Texas that had a two-story Victorian front porch. And if you look closely at those columns, there's a chamfered edge right where the pedestal cap would be, right? And so even though the column is very simple, they've still communicated the proportions. Same thing when we were at Colonial Williamsburg, there's a back porch there that has a very simple base of a column with the handrail running into it. And then it runs right up to the entablature that holds the porch. It's doing the same thing. And columns do the same thing, or at least should, right? Columns should communicate strength. Their purpose is to hold up the edge of a building, right? Their purpose is to hold up a porch. Vernaculars tends to be much easier than the classical because there tends to be a lot of rules with classical. I was in South Carolina and there was a front porch that had a very Doric bottom layer. And then the more ornate layer above that was the ionic order. And it seemed funny to me. Well, you know, why wouldn't they put the nicer columns on the bottom floor where people could see it and put the other ones above, right? And sometimes you'll see Corinthian orders way at the top of the building, right? The fanciest type. Well, realize, and if you went back and studied my videos on classicism, there is almost a gender that some columns are very masculine in order. They're very strong, okay? Some columns are very dainty and light. So the Corinthian order was meant to communicate the ideal of a woman, right? Whereas the Doric order, the Tuscan order, was meant to communicate more of a man. So it's natural that the stronger order, right, the heavier order would carry more weight. That's why it's on the bottom floor and it's not on the top floor because it's stronger. It can carry more. Another thing about the classical columns, and sometimes you'll see them on Greek revival buildings, the columns are square, right? Now what's the deal with that? A square column is called a pier, okay? It is a same thing as the other column, but sometimes it's not tapered, right? Well, let me talk about that. Columns should have movement. Columns have tapering, okay? And if we look at these columns here, there is a movement in the size of the column called entasis. Now, entasis means that the bottom third of the column is straight. From that third up to the shaft, it actually tapers down. If a column is a straight tube, they're actually, and the columns are close together, creates an optical illusion, actually makes the columns look like it's moving. I think it communicates more of a natural order, the way a tree would be big at the base and go up to the top, right? And so good columns have entasis. Now you'll look at this Greek revival house with these piers on it and notice that the columns are actually tapered. They have entasis. But look at the back of that house where the pilaster, which is, pilaster is an engaged column that sits against the house, that's engaged into the house. It isn't tapered. Now, pilasters typically aren't tapered and sometimes people don't like piers when they're tapered when they have entasis because it doesn't look as good. We've tried it both ways. I think it should have a little bit of movement. During the Victorian era, right, you see all kinds of crazy columns, right? All kinds of turn posts and realize that in that period of time, they're more concerned about the ornamentation and what they can do with new machinery than they are about keeping things classical. This porch actually has a capital and an entablature that it's holding up, but it's made out of all these funky parts, right? And so that too is a column, although it communicates, right, those ideals of that Victorian era. So what are columns not, okay? Which columns shouldn't be? There's a few rules, okay? First of all, a column is not a straight tube. This isn't a Brent Hall rule. This is a don't look like a dummy rule, right? If you do this straight tube, right, you will end up communicating that you don't understand these classical ideals that make things more beautiful. Columns are not ornamentation, okay? Columns have a structural purpose. We did a wonderful house in Texas about 15 years ago, and we did these vernacular square columns on this back porch, right? The architect came by and when he came to look at the house, he looked at those columns and he was like, they're the wrong size. And I was like, you know, what do you mean they're the wrong size? They look great. He goes, no, they should be an eight inch size column, not a 10 inch. As I've looked at that and as I've grown and understand things, I understand he was trying to communicate something that wasn't quite as heavy, right? See what I'm doing here, guys. You are dialing around like this. It's not, you know, this big dial, it moves like this. It is a very minor increment that you're doing this communicating ideals and this narrative about your house. The last thing is, is that, you know, when you're looking at different styles, there are different types of columns for different houses. In the craftsman period, right? You have these, oftentimes these brick piers that come up. There's a short squatty piered column that supports the porch, right? If you try to put a craftsman column on a classical house, it would look completely out of place, right? If you try to put a Victorian column on this house, it would look weird. The same column does not go on the same house. Okay, guys. So when you're ordering columns, okay, you have a lot of decisions to make. Now, I know that one of the things is they're going to say, do you want it with an intercess or do you want it as a straight tube? As I've hopefully said, you never want the straight tube. Don't look like a dummy, okay? Two, they're going to ask you about materials. Now these are from Chadsworth and these are structural fiberglass, right? What's going to happen is, is when they send them to you, it's going to be a tube like this, okay? The capital and base are going to be separate parts that you move on. Now, as I've grown, as I've grown as a builder, we used to use these all the time. But the problem is, is that, and you'll see down here, is that there's a gap that happens around this thing that goes around, right? And so what you end up having to do is caulk this line, right? And it always looks ugly. As we got better at what we do, we started looking at columns, we said, well, we need to be making our own. And so this is a column that we used in a recent porch. And this is completely integrated, right? This is called an apophagy, right? When that cove rolls up into here, it is a great tool that, that doesn't allow water to get in. And then we have our capital and everything else that goes on top of it. We always make these out of great wood, right? We don't use pine. We don't use Western pine because we know it rots. We're building these the way they used to be built and it really makes a big difference. The other thing I'd probably encourage you to do when you order columns is only stay with the Doric order, okay? Tuscan or Doric, those are the simplest orders. That's what these are, okay? Don't go to Ionic, don't go Corinthian. Here's a Corinthian capital, right? Here's a Corinthian capital on this little sample here. There's some Ionic capitals, those are the ones with the scrolls. The execution of those things is really difficult to pull off. You can't just go around and look at details. I'm in Fort Worth, Texas. There aren't good examples of Ionic capitals around for me to go look at. It's not like I can drive through my neighborhood and go, oh, there's a few I like, right? You really have to pull out the books and do the research to really find good ones. I know some of you guys are quick to go find these books that I talk about in some of my videos. This, from the American School of Correspondence in Chicago, this was a teaching organization to builders and architects in the turn of the century. I think this is 1904. But the comparison of the orders in this thing, one of the slides I'm using today, one of the best books for learning and figuring out the classical system. William Ware's American Vignola, right? That's another one that's really good, also done at about the turn of the century. But if you use those two books, you're going to start digging into and figuring this stuff out. So columns, right? Hopefully you'll see how much there is to study and understand and learn, right? When you dig into it, it's some beautiful, great stuff. It'll make you a better builder. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook, a lot of behind the scenes things. Sign up for the newsletter. I'm Brent Hull. Thanks for watching.