Doric (architectural style)

Refers to the architectural style associated with the first of both the three Greek architectural orders and the later five traditional classical orders of architecture that, with Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite, was used by the Romans and through the Renaissance and beyond. It may have origins in wooden Bronze Age structures, and stone versions of the style developed on mainland Greece, probably in Dorian Corinth and other cities such as Athens, in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. In ancient Greek architecture, it is characterized by a simple form and imposing scale, an undecorated abacus and echinus, columns with no base or pedestal and shafts with twenty shallow flutes, and an entablature with three elements, a plain architrave, a frieze composed of alternate triglyphs and metopes, and a strongly projecting cornice. The Roman and later adaptations often display modifications of the strict Greek rules and may include some decoration and a base for the columns. It is distinct from "Doric order," since an architectural order refers strictly to the specific system or assemblage of parts that is subject to uniform established rules and proportions, regulated by the role that each part has to perform.