history

Doors and windows were once among the primary means of

articulating a facade. Tailored to the orders, they expressed the
symmetry that guided the overall design of a building.

The decorum of doors and windows, from

the fifteenth to the eighteenth century
Peter Kohane & Michael Hill

What are the criteria for the design of doors and logic of the order, defined in terms of structure. Wall
windows? For the early modernists, this question openings and all they denoted had to submit to the
was redefined when the rise of the steel frame and architectonic principle: ‘doors and windows […] must
then reinforced concrete dissolved the traditional never encroach on the essential parts’.4 While old
relationship between structural solid and void. The decorative forms remained (and eighteenth-century
frame’s cladding required no particular load-bearing rationalist texts are still replete with traditional
rhythm in its fenestration; indeed a building could views), the context that defined values had begun to
be curtained entirely in glass, so that the wall shift to the structure of the building itself. The
became all window. Another development, ceremonial deportment of architecture in the city
facilitated though not caused by the new materials would become secondary. Moreover, given the
and structural systems, was the avant-garde’s critique structural emphasis, the idea of an exterior
of bounded space. Frank Lloyd Wright, for example, representing and accommodating the human body,
conceived of space opening-out from within, leading which hitherto had been implied by the sense in
to a preference for outward swinging casements which the city was considered a theatrical arena, was
rather than ‘poetry-crushing characteristics of the diminished.
guillotine window’.1 Alternatively, De Stijl exalted a
more abstract notion of space, extending in every
direction and awaiting definition via straight lines
and planes. No longer limited to fixed punctuations
in solid walls, architectural theorists could speak of
opaque and transparent screens sliding back and
forth, producing openings that invite free and varied
movement. As Theo van Doesburg declared, ‘The new
architecture has opened the walls and so done away
with separation of inside and outside’.2
Vitiating the distinction of inside and outside de-
emphasises the theatricality of openings. Henceforth
they need only be registered by the absence of
matter, not by heraldic devices, and in this respect it
is striking how many modern public buildings have
discreet entrances, barely larger than a regular door
or indistinct from a surrounding glass screen. The
decline in the theatricality of openings – or, to put it
another way, the distrust with ornament as a form of
expression – did not spring suddenly from the new
technology, but had its roots in the rationalist
architectural theory of the eighteenth century.
Beginning with Jean-Louis de Cordemoy, it became
common for theorists to insist that doors and
windows ought not interrupt the horizontal
structural divisions of a building, citing the entrance
arch that breaks the entablature on the east front of
the Louvre.3 Marc-Antoine Laugier [1] clarified this by 1 M.-A. Laugier, Essai
sur l’architecture, 2nd
asserting that non-essential elements, which ed., Paris, 1755,
included doors and windows, were bound to the 1 frontispiece

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 142 arq . vol 10 . no 2 . 2006 history
To modify the question – how were doors and
windows defined before modernism? The crucial
idea was the threshold, with the opening
understood in terms of movement and
transformation. As threshold, the doorway
dramatised a coming-to-order, a celebration of
passage from one state to another: from nature to
society, from without to within the city, or from the
street or square to the building.5 This is illuminated
by contrast: the doors to the Jewish Ghetto in Rome
were unadorned, thereby signifying a threshold to a
nameless urban space, denied by law any ability to
represent itself in terms of ornament or
monumentality.6 The ordering invoked by church
doors in particular was so important that they
housed not only representations of law, human and
divine, but actual legal proceedings of various kinds.
Heaven and hell were both entered through a door,
depicted as church portal (to which the Pope had the
key!) and city gate respectively.7 A window can also be
understood as a threshold, heralding the passage of
vision and light. The idea of light being animated at
the moment it passes through a window was a
longstanding topos. It could work metaphorically;
for example in Christian incarnation theology,
which visualised and compared the Holy Spirit
entering Mary and filling her body to light pouring
into a chamber. Animate light also exemplified the
Divine, as in the way Gothic stained glass
transfigures daylight into the many colours of
creation, in turn particularising the larger
separation of pure heavenly brilliance from the
illumination of the world.8 Whether as metaphor or
example, the window operates as veil between inner
and outer worlds.
The present study examines how doors and
windows were treated in Italian, French, and English
architectural literature from the fifteenth to the
eighteenth century. The material is arranged
synchronically, beginning with Alberti’s
classification of doors and windows (which include
intercolumniations) as a type of opening, along with
chimneys and drains, within the solid walled vessel
of the building. Later in the treatise, Alberti includes
openings as an example of ornament that gives
delight to the work.9 From these premises, constant
throughout the period, doors and windows
expressed three overlapping determinants. The
initial one was use. The second was decoration,
which spoke of the dedication of the building and its
parts. This category involved every aspect of an
opening – its size, shape, surrounding wall surface,
frame, and position. The final consideration was
symmetry, which organised openings along
horizontal and vertical axes, while also ensuring the
interrelationship of individual elements. Doors and
windows were thus governed by the idea of
appropriate form, or decorum, established in the
contexts of purpose, audience, and the ideal that
parts are related to each other and the whole. They
were also perforce related to the body. First, their
shape and decoration accommodated the individual
user or viewer. Second, doors and windows were
likened to apertures in a body, which allows us to
Kohane & Hill The decorum of doors and windows, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1359135506000224 Published online by Cambridge University Press
speak of architecture in figurative terms. The body is
the overarching concept, in that the harmonious
arrangement of parts – its symmetry – was the model
for the decorous interrelationship of doors and
windows.
Use
The purpose of a door is entrance and exit, that of a
window to illuminate an interior. These purposes
affected the form: as Milizia says, ‘doors must be
convenient to the body of man, while windows must
be proportionate to the amount of light’.10 With
regard to doors, there are two sorts of movement,
namely the entry into the building and then
circulation within it. There were thus two types of
door, the first large and usually arched, at least in
domestic buildings; the second squared, its height
commensurate with the standing figure. Scamozzi
says of the lesser doors that they must be a minimum
of three feet in width, that is, of two persons side by
side. This echoes Vitruvius’ criticism of the
intercolumniation of pycnostyle and systyle temples
on the grounds that they are too narrow to allow
virgins to enter arm-in-arm.11 On a palace, the larger
size of the main door would also enable entrance to
the courtyard on horseback; from the late sixteenth
century, main doors expanded further with the
introduction of coaches. The demands of horse-
ingress might explain Scamozzi’s observation that
the main doors in Venetian palaces are smaller than
even those of middle class buildings on the
mainland.12
For windows, the needs of light and air varied
according to geography and the orientation of the
building. In domestic buildings, Alberti’s rule was
widely applicable: ‘Summer apartments should have
windows with generous dimensions if they face
north; if they face south, they should be low and
narrow, so as to freely admit the breezes but avoid
the glare of the sun’s rays’.13 Light also determined
number and position, as each room required at least
one window. This meant the plan could be read from
the elevation; although, as discussed below, the
overriding importance of external symmetry
resulted in the facade occasionally contradicting the
plan. Apart from light, windows provide views, and
should be positioned accordingly. Scamozzi
recommended they should begin at a man’s chest
level; any lower would compromise privacy and
safety (children fall easily from low-silled windows).
Cordemoy, however, praised those windows that
went all the way to the floor, like doors, because they
provided unimpeded views of both distant gardens
and nearby flowerbeds, which could be enjoyed
while sitting down at the table.14 One final
requirement determining the position of windows,
which also applied to doors, is that for structural
reasons they be placed away from corners, by no less
than the width of the window.15 This meant that
openings were always contained within a solid
boundary. In contrast, Le Corbusier recalled the
radical choice he made at the beginning of his
career, when he recklessly violated convention and
put two windows on a corner.16 Frank Lloyd Wright

would later crystallise the wider theoretical
implications of the corner window: ‘In this simple
change of thought lies the essential of architectural
change from the box to free plan and the new reality
that is space instead of matter’.17
Decoration
Size
The status of a building was announced by the scale
of the principal door. In the imaginary city of
Sforzinda, Filarete proposed a seven-metre high door
to the Governor’s Palace, in contrast to the tiny
entrance, a little over one-metre high, of the prison
facing it on the other side of the piazza – a succinct
association of liberty and its lack with ease of
physical movement.18 In the eighteenth century,
William Chambers said in straightforward fashion
that places of consequence must have large and
profusely enriched entrances.19 This was nowhere
truer than in churches, whose oversized entrances
made them instantly recognisable among the bustle
of the city. It was also symbolic. For example, the
gigantic arch of S. Andrea in Mantua (1458–70, Leon
Battista Alberti) [2] evokes a procession into the
Civitas Dei, conflating images of heavenly portal and
triumphal arch. Symbolism and use are rarely far
apart, for while oversizing presaged the sacred
beyond, it also accommodated the entrance
demands of catafalques, baldachins, standards, and
the like that were typical of ever more spectacular
ceremony; as suggested, for example, by the opening
of S. Andrea della Valle (Rome, 1661-67, Carlo
Rainaldi) [3].20
2 S. Andrea, Mantua, 3 S. Andrea delle Valle,
Leon Battista Alberti, Rome, Carlo Rainaldi,
1458–70 1661–67
2 3
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history arq . vol 10 . no 2 . 2006 143
Wall surface
The surrounding wall could further enhance the
expressive quality of a door or window. Conversely,
render, brick, or stone were wall finishes that
established a tone – akin to the oratorical voices of
vernacular, plain, and ornamented – to which the
opening was attuned.21 City-gates, for example, were
often set within walls of massive rough-hewn blocks.
The finish, called rustication, was exemplified by
Rome’s ancient Porta Maggiore (52 AD) [4] and
illustrated in Sebastiano Serlio’s 1537 book 4 on
architectural ornament. The Porta Maggiore has
bossed masonry on both sides, so that one passes
through the same forbidding structure whether
entering or leaving the city. In contrast, Onians
suggests that in the sixteenth century the outer and
inner facades gained different meanings: for
example, the outer facade [5] of the Porta Palio
(Verona, c. 1550, San Michele) is more refined than its
inner rusticated one [6].22 Entering the city, one faces
an image of the civilised order that would be
encountered inside the town; on the other hand, the
gate’s rustication defined the outer rim of civility,
with wildness on the other side. However, the
directional nuance could be reversed, so that
rustication was on the outside of the city-gate and
the smooth face on the inner, such as the portal of
Artena (1620s, Giovanni Vasanzio) [7], which thereby
conveys to outsiders the idea of the town as a fortress
of order. In either case, rustication announces the
distinction between nature and art, and thus could
be used for a passage to and from any natural and/or
uncivilised domain, such as a villa, garden, or prison.
For Serlio, a door that mixed the Rustic with the
more refined orders expressed the metaphorical
threshold of nature and art. Having in mind the
entrance of a fortress, Serlio wrote that such a door:
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‘will represent partly the work of nature and partly

the work of artifice. That is, the columns faced with
rusticated stones, and also the architrave and frieze
broken by voussoirs, demonstrate the work of nature;
while the capitals, parts of the columns, and the cornice
and pediment represent the work of hand.’23

The orders
The Rustic door introduces the orders, which
Vitruvius (De Arch 4:3) said govern the style of doors
in general. For a start, the order attached to the door
determined its proportions. Renaissance writers
were not overly specific about this, other than
observing the broad range from standard double-
square of the Tuscan door through to the more
elongated Composite.24 In the eighteenth century,
however, Jacques-François Blondel gave precise
instructions: the proportions should be adjusted in
relation to the five orders and to the three door types
7
of arched, squared, and segmental. There were thus
15 possible proportions, some of which crossed the
4 Porta Maggiore, Rome, genres. For example, the Tuscan arched door has the
52 AD height to width proportion of 2:1. Squared (quarrées)
5 Porta Palio, Verona,
doors are squatter; with the Tuscan door in this
San Michele, 1550, view group one 12th less than double height (23:12), while
from outside city
the Ionic is one 12th more (25:12).25
6 Porta Palio, Verona,
San Michele, 1550, view Aedicules
from within city Discussing Vitruvius’ door styles, Alberti had also
7 Porta to Artena
observed that the Corinthians dressed their doors in
(formerly a ‘little portico’ (porticulo) – what is now called an
Montefortino),
aedicule (literally, ‘little dwelling’) – with columns on
Giovanni Vasanzio,
1620s either side of the jambs, supporting a pediment [8].26

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8 9

10 11

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8 Corinthian Door, 10 Diderot and section
Alberti, De Re D’Alembert, ‘Architecture’,
Aedificatoria, bk. 7 Encyclopédie, ‘Recueil Doors
(from Cosimo de planches’, vol. 2,
Bartoli ed., section ‘Architecture’, 12 Poor houses in the
Florence, 1550) Windows
9 Window, Palazzo 11 Diderot and
dei Conservatori, D’Alembert,
Rome, Encyclopédie, ‘Recueil
Michelangelo, 1555 de planches’, vol. 2,
An aedicule was originally the architecture of the
small shrine, a miniature temple that celebrated the
statue of the deity within. At some point it was
transferred to the opening in general, becoming the
flattened ‘little portico’, although to an extent,
however dim, memory of its shrine symbolism
would remain. The aedicule was the most distinctive
ornament in particular of the main door, lending
the facade a theatrical quality, the entrant solemnly
framed at the moment they entered or left the
building.
The aedicule of the window made it spectacular, like
a proscenium awaiting the appearance of actor [9].
There was also the blurring of distinctions, as when
the window assumed full-length and pretended to be a
door, barred to the open space outside by a balustrade
doubling as a window sill. In grand palaces, the actual
windows were often set within the depth of the jambs,
while the balustrades sat flush with the exterior wall,
creating a balconnet and enabling someone to stand
wholly within it, like a statue in a niche. Alternatively,
the straight pediment of an aedicule around the main
door could provide sufficient platform for a balcony in
front of the central window of the piano nobile. The
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history arq . vol 10 . no 2 . 2006 147
window aedicule is a distinctive and succinct
expression of style; significantly it was one of the key
foci of the attack on Renaissance classicism by
eighteenth-century theorists. Cordemoy thought
them intolerable, implying they trivialised real
architecture, a view repeated by Laugier, J.-F. Blondel,
and Milizia, while the architectural errors identified
by Visentini are overwhelmingly those of window
aedicules.27 The windows and doors later published in
the Encyclopédie were mostly without aedicules [10 &
11].
Social indicator
Doors and windows were ornaments of a facade.
Although in major structures they were integrated
within a broader decorative programme defined by
the orders, a simple building was decorated by no
more than floor divisions and wall openings.28 The
main door on the ground floor was the clearest
indicator of a building’s status; applied decoration
begins from here, growing out as the quality of the
building increases. On medieval houses, for example,
ancient spoils were usually fitted around entrances,
ennobling an otherwise rude structure. Some
entrances could be personalised to the owner, such
as fifteenth-century Veronese palaces, which have
family insignia and mottos carved among the detail
12 of the portal architraves.29 Serlio’s sixth book on
domestic architecture precisely demonstrated the
main door’s decorative priority: the lowest houses
have nothing distinguishing their exteriors but a
straight lintel; as the status increases, so the door
gains a segmental arch, a pediment; eventually, the
door spawns the other adornments of aedicules, as
city, Sebastiano
the house makes its ascent to the palace [12]. In this
Serlio, bk. 6, c.
1547 (Bayerische way, the door was keyed to the social order of the city.
StaatsBibliothek, By the eighteenth century, Blondel could assert that
Cod. Icon. 189,
45r) the decoration of a door ‘depended completely’ on
the genre of the building, that is, its social type.30
Position
The decoration of windows was an advanced phase in
the sophistication of a building. Windows were
highly inflected, their decoration representing both
the status of the inhabitant as well as their actual
physical position on the elevation of the building.
Chambers writes of the ascending refinement of
windows on an elevation:
‘The windows of the ground floor are sometimes left
entirely plain without any ornament; and at other times
they are surrounded with rustics [...] Those of the second
floor have generally an architrave, carried entirely
round the aperture; and the same is the method of
adorning attic and mezzanin windows; but these last
two have seldom or ever either frize or cornice [...]’31
The shape of windows was also related to their
position, so that those to the main levels were
rectangular, like doors, while the squared windows
lit the subordinate floors of mezzanine or attic. On
the Palazzo Barberini (Rome, 1620s, Carlo Maderno
and Francesco Borromini), a playful disjunction
results from aligning the stately window of the
upper salon with the fancifully ornamented square
windows of the more private apartment alongside
[13]: such a clash of types – like two individuals from
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different walks of life bumping into each other on

the street – throws into relief the normal decorum of
window distribution. The Palazzo Caprini (Rome, c.
1512, Bramante, destroyed) [14] highlights the
building’s dual purpose, with the rusticated ground
floor of shop windows forming a podium to the
columned and aediculed living quarters above.32
Here the allusion is one of contrast, the robust realm
of commerce distinguished from the refined
domestic sphere above. The location and adornment
of windows could also respond to the reality of
neighbourhood. Serlio described the house of a
faction-leader, situated by necessity among the lower
classes [15].33 The owner is required to be liberal with 13
his dependents, providing them with jobs and even
places of entertainment within the palace. They in
turn might then be willing to take arms and help
defend the owner against his enemies, namely the
dependents of other padrone nearby. Accordingly for
such a strife-ridden neighbourhood, there are no
windows at street level, with the first register 13 feet
high on the wall and sloped down on the other side
to illuminate the ground floor interior. These
windows have rusticated surrounds. It is not until
the upper floors that we see delicate aedicules with
alternating segmental and triangular pediments. In
short, the ascending refinement of windows 14
dramatised a separation from the potentially violent
environment of the street.

Symmetry
Doors and windows were parts of the entire building,
and their size and decoration conformed to a
pattern. This is the principle of symmetry, the
agreement between members within a general
framework. The march of vertically aligned (void
over void) and commensurately sized and spaced
openings is one of the abiding features of classical
architecture. For example, the symmetrical
arrangement of centred door with windows evenly
spaced on either side was the fourth rule of Alvise
Cornaro’s projected 1550 treatise; two hundred years
later, the rule remained in J.-F. Blondel and Milizia.34
Symmetry involved coordinating the size of
rectangular windows from one level to another.
Palladio recommended one-sixth diminution per
floor above the piano nobile, creating ‘columns’ of
tapered openings suggestive of a giant order. On 15
choosing the standard, Palladio again gave a clear
and highly influential formula: choose as a model a
middle-size room with width to length dimensions
of three to five; the window width will be between
one quarter and one fifth the room width; the
height will be roughly double the width, with some
proportional refinement depending on the order
used on the outside.35 This underlying rhythm of
window size and placement should be enlivened
with emphasis, antithesis, and variety – otherwise,
boring monotony would result. Most theoretical
statements about fenestration stress the role of a
central vertical axis. Windows therefore tended to be
odd numbered on each floor, with the central one
somewhat larger, or even differently shaped, as in the
case of a Serliana.36 16

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17 18

13 Palazzo Barberini, 15 House of a faction 17 Restored house, the desired external symmetry; in which case there
2nd floor detail, leader (detail), Serlio, Serlio (Tutte l’opere,
Rome, C. Maderno bk. 6, c. 1547 Venice, 1619, bk. 7, p. would be a disjunction in favour of the exterior. A
and F. Borromini, (Bayerische 169) famous example of this is Borromini’s oratory of S.
1624–32 StaatsBibliothek,
Cod. Icon. 189, 59r) 18 Restored house,
Filippo Neri, where the plan is disjointed from the
14 Palazzo Caprini, Serlio (Tutte l’opere, five-bayed curved facade. In this case, the exterior
Rome, Bramante, c. 16 Palazzo Strozzi, rear Venice, 1619, bk. 7, p.
design was oriented to a viewer in the piazza, who
1512, (destroyed) view, Florence, 157)
(engraving, Antonio Benedetto da needed to see the institutional and hierarchical
Lafreri) Maiano, 1480 (photo, relationship between the oratory and the mother
Soprintendenza alle
Gallerie, Florence) church of S. Maria in Vallicella alongside. So
Borromini decided to deceive the exterior viewer and
pretend the oratory was immediately beside the
Symmetry was thus defined in terms of the church, with the front door, which in fact leads to
exterior: rooms large and small could have the same the antechamber, feigned to suggest a central altar
size window; some were not centred in the room; behind.40 Even Milizia, who was no admirer of the
sometimes there was no room at all, giving rise to sham facades common in Rome, asserted that
the blind opening.37 This last might seem peculiar, disordered fenestration was an offence because the
but it reveals the extent to which facades were facade was continually exposed to the eyes of the
coordinated for the viewer outside the building. public, and lack of symmetry harms the decorum of
Venturi contrasted traditional exterior symmetry to the city: ‘when a window is not required inside, put a
the modernist principle of flowing interior space fake one on the outside’.41
that ‘produces’ the outside of a building.38 This is a Symmetry was not only a matter of stylistic
useful insight, albeit an exaggeration – it was one of coherence, for just as doors and windows were parts
degree not kind, for it is not as if interiors and of the whole building, so the building was part of the
facades were completely disconnected. Palladio’s whole city. The symmetry of openings provided
formula for the window size, for example, enables at order to the wider urban environment. ‘Disordered’
least the average unit of the plan to be read from fenestration, where windows were sized and located
outside. In a general sense, theorists assumed that simply according to use, should only occur on the
the plan and the elevation were related; J.-F. Blondel non-public side of the building, away from the main
went so far as to say that windows, keyed to the street, as in the rarely photographed side lane
interior, exhibited the disposition of the building.39 prospect of the Palazzo Strozzi (Florence, c. 1480,
Occasionally, however, the plan was unable to supply Benedetto da Maiano) [16].42 Serlio’s book 7 includes

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three examples of old houses that have been
restored.43 In each case the proposed new facade is
accompanied by an altered plan; yet this is
secondary, as the guiding consideration is the view
from outside. One palace is perfectly sound and
commodious, but it does not have the symmetry of
its neighbours, the door being in the wrong place
and the windows unevenly grouped. The new facade
[17] has a door in the centre and the windows, while
still unequally spaced, now harmonise in a
‘discordant concordance (discordia concordante), as in
music’.44 The musical phrase, attached to an analogy
of windows with the different voices in a choir,
derives from the frontispiece to Franchino Gaffurio’s
1508 text on the nature of music, Angelicum ac divinum
opus, which shows a teacher demonstrating via both
aural notes and spatial measures the dictem,
Harmonia est discordia concors. Windows must hit the
right notes, not individually but in concert, creating
a visual symmetry that is akin to music.
Another restoration [18] suggests that a lack of
external symmetry was more or less a public offence.
Serlio tells the story of a rich man who lived in an
ugly palace. The man had for a long while resisted all
entreaties to renovate the building, ‘loving money
more than the decorum of the city’.45 Eventually the
local prince forced him to convert the facade into a
style and beauty suitable for the city. So the owner
engaged the best architect, instructing him to
conserve the house while providing a facade to
satisfy the prince. The main alteration was unifying
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the windows and moving the off-centre door to the
middle. It would be difficult not to compare the story
with those sumptuary laws that demanded
appropriate dress among city dwellers, for the issue
was a matter of civility.
The body: analogy and decorum
The word facade derives via France from the Italian
facciata, or faccia, meaning face. The characterisation
of a building as having a facade begins in the early
Renaissance, possibly with Alberti, and is
commonplace by the end of the fifteenth century
[19].46 A facade has openings just as a face has orifices,
and both Vasari and Scamozzi likened the main door
of a building to the mouth, the windows to the eyes.47
Similarly, a building with too many windows was
stigmatised by Henry Wooten as like Argus, the
mythical spy, covered in eyes. In turn, the body was
characterised in a complementary way by writers
such as Giovanni Battista Della Porta, whose 1586
compendium The Physiognomy of Man describes the
mouth as the doorway (of which the lips were the
shutting doors!) and windows as the eyes to the
soul.48 The analogy went beyond appearance,
alluding to the figurative operation of both the
building and the body as vessels that fill and empty
via openings. Doors permit passage to the inside,
vitalising the building with living bodies; windows
light interiors and enable views. Likewise, the mouth
accepts things from without, above all the breath of
life that animates the soul; eyes see the pictures of
19

the world, brightening the mind with sensible
reality. The coupling of face and facade rests on
chiasmic inversion, making architecture of the body,
while anthropomorphising the building. In the
latter part of the seventeenth century, Claude
Perrault criticised such human analogy as merely
conventional. However, it is noteworthy that Jacques-
François Blondel, defender of the ancients in the
contemporary querelle with the moderns, responded
to the pro-modern Perrault by citing Scamozzi’s
facial metaphor as an example of natural beauty, like
the well-made column or justly-spaced plan:
‘[...] the door in the middle of a building, and the
windows at equal distance to the right and left, with the
same height and width [...] give us a natural pleasure,
because they imitate the beauty of a face or a body, that
is to say the normal situation of the mouth in the
middle, with the eyes, nostrils, eyebrows, cheeks, ears,
arms, and legs all [that is, each half of the pair] on
the same level and at equal distance from the middle of
the body or the face.’49
The analogy between the body and the orders is well
known, that involving openings less so. With the
former, the analogy was established in terms of
commensuration – that is, the parts of an order were
related in a manner that resembled the coherence of
the human body – something dramatised by
theorists when the standing figure was shown
within a column, or the profiled face over an
entablature.50 In this way the body was present in the
column components of the opening’s aedicule
20
21
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history arq . vol 10 . no 2 . 2006 151
frame. In addition, the space of the opening was a
convenient frame for the upright body. The
anthropomorphic quality of the rectangular door
was brought into relief by Milizia’s simple hypothesis
that if man were four legged we would have square
doors, while the hexagon would be convenient for
apes [20].51 Isaac Ware even suggested the door’s
moulded enframement responded to the body’s
passing: originally a door was no more than a hole in
a wall; the beading of the door jamb was first
developed to prevent tearing one’s clothes – ‘A plain
door received this ornament, the bead at its edge
swelled by degrees [...] to an architrave’.52
While doors framed the body’s entry, windows
made a spectacle of the body within. In particular,
the scene of a woman at a window was
commonplace, evoking both her domestic
confinement and her role as viewing and viewed
subject: in this latter sense the window surrounds
were like a picture frame. For example, in the moral
tables of Maximilian Sforza (c. 1496) a couplet ‘Va per
Milan el conte inamorato/e da tutte le dame è contemplato’
(‘the beloved count goes through Milan and is
admired by all the ladies’) is accompanied by a
picture of a woman at a window spying the count as
he rides past on his horse [21]. The image is a
revealingly succinct statement of gender roles. The
imperious boy commands the street, to which access
is via the main door of a grand building behind. The
girl is pictured on the edge, high above the sunlit
public space of the prince below, framed by the
19 Orc house in Bomarzo
Gardens, Pirro
Ligorio, 1552
20 Drawing by Wei Yee
Teng, 2002, based on
Milizia, Principj, 1813,
vol. 2, 80
21 Tables of Maximilian
Sforza, Milan, Bib.
Triv. 2167, 10v
22 Palazzo Sesso-Zen-
Fontana (detail), late
14th century, Vicenza
22
Kohane & Hill
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23

window and dark private world behind; she appears

at the window-threshold, making her private
longings a public show and thereby adorning the
building for outside viewers. The window stages part
of the theatre of everyday society, and in fact it is
tempting to regard those such as are common on the
palaces of the Veneto as miniature proscenia
(Vicenza, Palazzo Sesso-Zen-Fontana) [22]. When real
ceremony is pictured, as in Giovanni Mansueti’s
Miracle of the Relic of the Holy Cross in Campo S. Lio (1494,
Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice) [23], the division of
men in public squares and women at private
windows is elevated to something of a paradigm of
social visibility. By the nineteenth century, it is a
poetic image of separate worlds: both Alfred
Tennyson’s ‘Lady of Shalott’ (Poems, 1833) and Robert
Browning’s ‘The Statue and the Bust’ (Men and Women,
1855), have as their central motif a kept woman
watching the action in the city below from a window.
The idea of openings as the space for the human
body did in fact have its own ornamental proxy – the
niche, which Alberti established as a type of opening,
positioned and formed like doors and windows.53 A
niche was meant to house a statue, and in this
respect an aediculed niche bears memory of the
24
shrine. In the present context of the niche-statue it
might be seen as denoting a body in an opening,
animating a facade, while also underscoring the
23 Giovanni Mansueti, 24 S. Carlo alle Quattro exemplary importance to architecture of the living
Miracle of the Relic of Fontane, facade body [24]. As Chambers put it, a niche ennobles the
the Holy Cross in Campo detail, Rome,
S. Lio (1494, Gallerie Francesco Borromini,
body’s relationship to the building:
dell’Accademia, 1667 ‘as the human body is justly esteemed the most perfect
Venice)
original [of architecture], it has been customary, in all
times, to enrich different parts of buildings with
representations thereof [...] most frequently they [the

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 history arq . vol 10 . no 2 . 2006 153

statues] occupy cavities made in walls, which are
called niches’.54
Joseph Connors remarked on Vignola’s practice of
inserting windows and doors within niches. On the
Villa Giulia (Rome, 1551) the flanking bays of the
triumphal arch entrance motif double on the
ground floor as conventional niches, while in
corresponding niches on the level above small
windows pierce the back of the curved walls where
statues could be expected.55 In Vignola’s unexecuted
project for the Gesù facade, known from an
engraving by Mario Cartaro (1573), the two minor
doors leading to the aisles are capped with niche-like
conch shells rather than framed with aedicules,
thereby taking their place as parts of the rhythm of
large and small niches that run across the nine bays;
in turn, church-goers are the implied figures in the
niche-doors, just as the actual statues are placed in
the bays on either side.
Conclusion
The body informed the traditional characterisation of
doors and windows. It was there as metaphor, so that
architectural openings could be likened to the
sensory apertures of living beings. The metaphor
fortified the distinction of inside and outside; of dark,
delimited space entered and lit from the bright
exterior. Doors and windows celebrated this
figurative distinction as a threshold, announced by
decoration, so that the hole punctured in the solid
wall became a focus of architectural meaning. In so
doing, the building was made spectacular: the
occupant’s body, whether actual or implied, was
theatricalised for the viewer by the decoration
around openings; conversely, their animated frames
address the audience outside the building, inviting
entry or mirroring its view. The implied appearance
of the body in the door or the window is critical. From
here the human analogia becomes embedded in the
building’s form: it is suggested by the ‘little-building’
that surrounds the opening; while the symmetry of
its proportions is a model for the arrangement of
parts and ordering of the building as a whole. The
result is a coherent and well-deported building.
Deportment suggests a social and behavioural
model for architecture, and indeed the articulation
of doors and windows was attuned to social
hierarchy. Use was not defined as mere
functionalism, but in terms of performance;
decoration was keyed to status, of the building and
its occupant, but also of the door or window within
the hierarchic order of the building itself; the
symmetry of fenestration contributed to the
decorum of the city. Decorum can mean elegance,
and in this sense shabby or disordered fenestration is
indecorous because it is ugly.56 It also means
appropriate form, measured, according to the
classical tradition, against the complements of
individual and community.57 Doors and windows at
every stage seem shaped by this idea, from the basic
issue of entry and light to the intricate
considerations of proportion and ornament.
Decorum underpins the subject, while also making
it difficult to discuss in isolation, the focus
constantly slipping – from the opening, to the
building, to the city, and back again.
It would be another essay to identify how this
highly compacted view of doors and windows began
to unravel. The most obvious explanation might
focus on the technological changes, above all on the
rise of the frame and glass sheeting. Another line of
enquiry was suggested in the preamble, namely the
eighteenth-century reorientation of architecture
towards the ‘truth’ of structure, and away from the
manipulation of elements for decorative and
rhetorical purposes. Doors and windows, while
necessary for utility (otherwise the building would
be an impenetrable box), were not essential to the
nature of architecture: the chastened scope of their
expression reflects their subordinate position in the
hierarchy of architectural elements, one governed by
the structural logic of the orders. ‘Structural logic’
suggests a stricter model of what architecture ought
to be, and the story of the decline of doors and
windows would parallel the better-known fate of the
orders, whose proportions were first disinvested of
humanistic significance by Perrault, then confined
to the support of structure by Cordemoy and
followers. There is a difference, however: unlike
the orders, doors and windows did not disappear.
Rather they were redefined, as building went from
vessel to frame, as walls thinned to curtains, and as
facade composition was replaced by structural
expression.

Notes
1. ‘In the Cause of Architecture’ (1908),
in F. L. Wright, The Work of Frank
Lloyd Wright (Horizon Press, 1965),
p. 15. [Thanks to John Gamble for
sharing his insights on Wright and
openings.] The various modernist
approaches, and some older views,
are canvassed in a fundamental
collection of essays, V.
Lampugnani, ed., The Architecture of
the Window (Tokyo: YKK
Architectural Products Inc., 1995).
See also, D. Leatherbarrow and M.
Mostafavi, Surface Architecture
(Cambridge, Mass. and London:
MIT Press, 2002), 39–78; J. L. Sert,
‘On Windows and Walls’ (1961), in
José Luis Sert. Architecture, city
planning, urban design, Knud
Bastlund ed. (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1967), 192–93; C. Slessor,
Contemporary Doorways. Architectural
Entrances, Transitions, and Thresholds
(London: Mitchell Beazley, 2002).
2. T. van Doesburg, ‘Towards a Plastic
Architecture’ (1924), in Programmes
and Manifestoes in Twentieth-Century
Architecture, ed. U. Conrads, trans.
M. Bullock (London: Lund
Humphries, 1970), 79. See C. van de
Ven, Space in Architecture, (Assem:
Van Gorcum, 1977); D.
Leatherbarrow, The Roots of
Architectural Invention: Site, Enclosure,
Materials (Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1993), 10–13. A. Forty, Words and
Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern
Architecture (London: Thames and
Hudson, 2000).
3. J.-L. de Cordemoy, Nouveau traité de
toute l’architecture, 2nd ed. (Paris,
1714), p. 99. Also, W. Chambers,
Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil
Architecture, 3rd ed. (London, 1791),

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 154 arq . vol 10 . no 2 . 2006 history
p. 118; A. Visentini, Osservazioni ... al
trattato di Teofilo Gallaccini sopra gli
errori degli architetti (Venice, 1771), p.
3 and p. 77, for windows that ‘eat’
the architrave of the floor above.
4. M.-A. Laugier, Essai sur l’architecture,
2nd ed. (Paris, ed, 1755), pp. 51–52.
5. Of the modern city, Paul Virilio
observes that the idea of a
threshold has been blurred by
suburbia: ‘The Overexposed City’,
Zone, 1/2 (1998), pp. 15–31. Actual
doors rarely regulate arrival and
departure – except in the case of
the airport, the modern portal to a
state, which consequently has
gathered rich symbolisms.
6. F. Barry, ‘Roman Apartheid? The
Counter Reformation Ghettoes’,
Daidalos, 59 (March, 1996), pp.
22–23.
7. B. Deimling, ‘Medieval Church
Portals and their Importance in
the History of Law’, in R. Toman
ed., Romanesque (Cologne:
Könneman, 1997), p. 325. Dante’s
entrance to the city of sorrows,
superimposed with terrifying verse
(‘lasciate ogni speranza voi
ch’entrate!’), is an image that likely
derives from the sort of epigraphs
seen above medieval gates as one
left the city: Inferno, III, 1–9; N.
Sapegno ed. (Florence: La Nuova
Italia, 1978), p. 30, n. 1.
8. F. Barry, ‘Lux and Lumen: The
symbolism of real and represented
light in the Baroque church’,
Kritische Berichte 4 (2002), pp. 22–37.
See, C. Gottlieb, The Window in Art
(New York: Abaris, 1981); Joseph
Rykwert, ‘Windows and Architects’,
and Fritz Neumeyer, ‘Light
Intensive Architecture’, in
Lampugnani, Architecture of the
Window, pp. 12–23 and 34–36.
9. Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten
Books (1452), trans. N. Leach, J.
Rykwert, and R. Tavernor
(Cambridge, Mass. and London:
MIT Press, 1988), bk. 1, ch. 6, 28 and
bk. 6, ch. 6, 180. W. Oechslin
contrasts this aspect of Alberti with
the less rigorous terminology of
Vitruvius: ‘Leon Battista Alberti’s
apertio: the Opening Absolute’, in
Lampugnani, The Architecture of the
Window, p. 29. See also, R. Feuer-
Tóth, ‘The Apertionum Ornamenta
of Alberti and the Architecture of
Brunelleschi’, Acta Historiae
Artium Academiae Scientiarum
Hungaricae, 24 (1978), p. 148.
10. F. Milizia, Principj di architettura
civile, 1st ed. 1786 (Bassano, 1813),
vol. 2, p. 80.
11. V. Scamozzi, L’idea della architettura
universale (Venice 1615), vol. 2, bk. 6,
p. 162; Vitruvius, On Architecture,
trans. F. Granger (London:
Heinemann, 1931), bk. 3, ch. 3, p.
171. Isaac Ware was critical of the
overly large main doors advocated
Kohane & Hill The decorum of doors and windows, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century
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by Scamozzi and others, but not as
much as the opposite ‘too
common in plain houses. Doors
are put which seem to say, no fat
man comes into this house’. A
Complete Body of Architecture
(London, 1756), p. 438.
12. Scamozzi, L’idea, vol. 1, bk. 3, p. 318.
13. Alberti, Ten Books, bk. 1, ch. 12, p.
29. On the other hand, in churches
windows should be positioned
high, to restrict view to the sky
alone, and mean in number and
size, so as to create a venerable
atmosphere and dramatise candle
flames: idem, bk. 7, ch. 12, p. 223.
14. Scamozzi, L’idea, vol. 1, bk. 3, pp.
319–20; Cordemoy, Nouveau traité, p.
99. More recently, Auguste Perret
praised the long window, over the
Le Corbusian horizontal window,
in similar terms to Cordemoy, the
later’s waist-high sill preventing
views to the garden and street:
Giovanna D’Amia, ‘La fenêtre en
hauteur of Auguste Perret’, in
Lampugnani, Architecture of the
Window, p. 122; also Bruno
Reichlin, ‘Stories of Windows’,
idem, 105–109, for Le Corbusier’s
side of the argument.
15. Alberti, Ten Books, bk. 1, ch. 12, p.
30; A. Palladio, The Four Books on
Architecture (1570), trans. R.
Tavernor and R. Scholfield
(Cambridge, Mass. and London:
MIT Press, 1997), bk. 1, ch. 25, p. 60;
Scamozzi, L’idea, vol. 1, bk. 3, p. 319.
16. ‘A 17 ans et demi, je construisis ma
première maison. Déjà j’avais
risqué contre l’avis des sages. Une
témérité: deux fenêtres d’angle’ in
Reichlin, ‘Stories of Windows’,
Lampugnani, Architecture of the
Window, p. 112. The source is Mise
au point of 1965. Le Corbusier
exaggerated his youth and it is
unclear what building he refers to.
17. Wright, An American Architecture
(1955), p. 77, cited in
Leatherbarrow, Architectural
Invention, p. 175.
18. That is, 12 x 6 braccia, and 2 x 1.5
braccia. Antonio Averlino, called
Filarete, Treatise on Architecture
(1450s), trans. J. Spencer (New
Haven and London: Yale UP, 1965),
pp. 124–25.
19. Chambers, Civil Architecture, p. 113.
20. Giulio Argan suggested the
Baroque church facade was like a
gigantic invitation to enter:
‘Rettorica e architettura’, Immagine
e persuasione – saggi sul barocco
(Milan: Feltrinelli, 1986), pp. 26–27.
21. Ancient authorities on oratory,
Demetrius excluded, recognised
three oratorical styles. On facade
finishes, Paolo Cortesi described in
ascending nobility: lined stucco,
brick trimmed with travertine, and
travertine. J. D’Amico and K. Weil-
Garris, ‘The Renaissance Cardinal’s
Ideal Palace: A Chapter from
Cortesi’s De Cardinalatu (c. 1510)’,
in H. Millon ed., Studies in Italian Art
and Architecture, 15th through 18th
centuries (Rome: Edizioni di
Elefante, 1980), p. 87.
22. J. Onians, Bearers of Meaning. The
Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle
Ages, and the Renaissance (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1988), pp. 325–28.
23. S. Serlio, On Architecture, vol. 1, bks.
1–5, of Tutte L’Opere, trans. and ed. V.
Hart and P. Hicks (New Haven and
London: Yale UP, 1996), p. 270. Also,
J.-F. Blondel, Cours d’architecture
(Paris, 1698), part IV, bk. 9, p. 540.
Qv. Marcello Fagiolo ed., Natura e
artificio. L’ordine rustico, le fontane, gli
automi nella cultura del manierismo
europeo (Rome: Officina, 1981), esp.
pls. 22–25; Onians, Bearers of
Meaning, 288–90; A. Payne,
‘Architects and Academies.
Architectural Theories of Imitatio
and the Literary Debates on
Language and Style’, in G. Clarke
and P. Crossley eds., Architecture and
Language. Constructing Identity in
European Architecture, c. 1000-c. 1650
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000),
pp. 118–122.
24. Palladio, Four Books, bk. 1, ch. 25, p.
60. On the other hand, P. Delorme,
Architecture (1567), (Paris, 1647), p.
235. F. Blondel, Cours, bks. 7–9, is
exhaustive with measurements;
but only as examples, and he cites
with approval (idem, p. 456)
Palladio’s caution. Also repeated by
E. Hoppus, The Gentleman’s and
Builder’s Repository: or, Architecture
Displayed (London, 1760), p. 71.
25. J.- F. Blondel, L’architecture françoise
(Paris, 1752), p. 109.
26. Alberti, Ten Books, bk. 7, ch. 12, p.
226. On the aedicule, see J.
Summerson, ‘Heavenly Mansions:
An Interpretation of Gothic’, in
Heavenly Mansions and Other Essays on
Architecture (New York: Norton
Library, 1963), pp. 3–5. F. Blondel,
Cours d’architecture, pp. 435–63,
provides the most detailed
elaboration of Vitruvius’ three
order/door aedicule types,
considering Vignola’s and
Palladio’s recommendations,
before (pp. 463–536) a 73 page (!)
commentary on Scamozzi’s four
pages on doors and windows.
27. Cordemoy, Nouveau traité, p. 99;
Laugier, Essai, p. 50; J.-F. Blondel,
Architecture françoise, p. 115; Milizia,
Principj, vol. 2, bk. 3, p. 85; Visentini,
Osservazioni, passim.
28. Ware, Complete Body, p. 313.
29. R. Krautheimer, Rome. Profile of a
City, 312–1308 (Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1980), 298. P. Davies and D.
Hemsoll, ‘I portali dei palazzi
veronesi nel Rinascimento’, in
Edilizia privata nella Verona
rinascimentale, P. Lanaro ed. (Milan:

Electa, 2000), p. 257. For a general
discussion of the personalised
entrance, see G. Clark, Roman House
– Renaissance Palace: Inventing
Antiquity in Fifteenth-Century Italy
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003),
pp. 240–55.
30. J.-F. Blondel, Cours d’architecture …
(Paris, vol. 3, 1771), p. 124. The idea
of doors keyed to social levels is
also behind the presentation of the
subject in S. Le Clerc, Traité
d’architecture (Paris, 1714), pp.
139–42.
31. Chambers, Civil Architecture, p. 117.
32. P. Davies and D. Hemsoll observe
the same of Sansovino’s design for
the library of St. Mark’s in Venice,
contrasting the plain lower storey
of shops with the ornate upper
storey library: ‘Sanmicheli’s
Architecture and Literary Theory’,
in Clarke and Crossley eds.,
Architecture and Language, p. 107.
Likewise, see C. Burroughs, The
Renaissance Palace Facade. Structures
of Authority, Surfaces of Sense
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002),
pp. 25 and 147–50.
33. S. Serlio, Architettura civile. Libri
sesto, settimo, e ottovo nei manoscritti
di Monaco e Vienna, Francesco Paolo
Fiore ed. and intro. with Tancredi
Carunchio (Milan: Il Polifilo, 1994),
p. 145.
34. Cornaro in Trattati: con l’aggiunta
degli scritti di architettura di Alvise
Cornaro, Francesco Giorgi, Claudio
Tolomei, Giangiorgio Trissino,
Giorgio Vasari, E. Bassi et al. eds.,
vol. 5, part 1 (Milan: Il Polifilo,
1985: Trattati di architettura), p. 95; J.-
F. Blondel , L’architecture françoise, p.
112; Milizia, Principj, vol. 2, p. 94.
35. Palladio, Four Books, p. 60.
Palladio’s formula became
common: see Jean Courtonne,
Architecture moderne, ou l’art de bien
bâtir (Paris, 1726), p. 60; Chambers,
Civil Architecture, pp. 115–16; Milizia,
Principj, vol. 2, p. 90. Chambers also
suggests a ‘a better rule, but cannot
remember where. To the best of my
recollection, it proportions the
quantity of light to be thrown in,
to the number of square feet
contained on the plan of the room
...’ The source is a 1730 lecture to
the Royal Society by Robert Morris
Lectures on Architecture (London,
1759), p. 105. See Eileen Harris in J.
Harris, Sir William Chambers. Knight
of the Polar Star (London: Zwemmer,
1970), p. 139.
36. For example, every door in the
Palazzo Massimo (Rome, Baldasare
Peruzzi, 1531–36) has the same
proportion, yet different
moulding: M. Wilson Jones,
Principles of Roman Architecture (New
Haven and London, 2000), p. 10. On
window sizes: Alberti, Ten Books, p.
29; Scamozzi, L’idea, vol. 1, p. 319; J.-
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1359135506000224 Published online by Cambridge University Press
F. Blondel, Architecture françoise, p.
113; Milizia, Principj, vol. 2, p. 92. On
the other hand, Chambers, Civil
Architecture, pp. 117–18, objects to
this practice. R. Wittkower
discusses windows as terminating
axes in English architecture:
‘Pseudo Palladian Elements in
English Neo-Classical Architecture’,
in Palladio and English Palladianism
(London: Thames and Hudson,
1974), pp.155–74.
37. The Palazzo Rucellai (Florence,
1446, Alberti) has both fake
mezzanine windows and a fake
door; the latter was required
whenever a real door was off-
centre, as Serlio would say when
referring to a smaller side door of a
city gate: ‘per servar simmetria, che
vuol dir corrispondenza
proportionata, è necessario farne
un’altra finta’: Serlio, Tutte l’opere
d’architettura (Venice, 1619), bk. 4,
129. The advice is repeated by
Cordemoy, Nouveau traité, p. 99, of
all people! The fake opening was
still being advocated, on the
grounds of symmetry and the
decorum of the city (the word used
is courtesy), as late as the 1920s, by
T. Edwards, Good and Bad Manners in
Architecture (1924; London: John
Tiranti, 2nd ed., 1944), pp. 141–45.
38. R. Venturi, Complexity and
Contradiction in Architecture (1966;
London: The Architectural Press,
2nd ed., 1977), p. 70.
39. J.-F. Blondel, L’architecture françoise,
p. 111; also, Scamozzi, L’idea, vol. 1,
p. 46.
40. F. Borromini, Opus architectonicum
(c. 1648), ed. M. de Benedictus
(Rome: De Rubeis, 1993), pp. 46–48.
41. Milizia, Principj, vol. 2, p. 94. On
Milizia’s dislike of facadism, idem,
pp. 289–90.
42. This view was illustrated in
Venturi, Complexity, p. 87. It is
impossible to photograph today as
other buildings now abut the rear
of the palace.
43. Serlio, Tutte l’opere, bk. 7, pp.
156–57, 168–69, and 170–71. Erwin
Panofsky cited these Serlian
examples as exemplifying
conformità, the principle which
characterised the new-found
ability in the Renaissance to match
style with historical period: ‘The
First Page of Giorgio Vasari’s
“Libro”: a study on the Gothic Style
in the Judgement of the Italian
Renaissance. With an excursus on
two facades designs by Domenico
Beccafumi’ (1930), Meaning in the
Visual Arts (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1970), pp. 229–30. The
present authors would identify
conformità with decorum. See also,
R. Cevese, ‘La riformatione delle
case vecchie secondo Sebastiano
Serlio’, in ed. C. Thoenes, Sebastiano
The decorum of doors and windows, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century
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Serlio (Milan: Electa, 1989), pp.
196–202.
44. Serlio, Tutte l’opere, bk. 7, p. 168. On
Gaffurio, see Onians, Bearers of
Meaning, p. 227.
45. Serlio, Tutte l’opere, bk. 7, 156.
46. Burroughs, Renaissance Facades
(1993), p.10. An earlier dating is
given by Nicholas Adams and
Laurie Nussdorfer, who assign the
first architectural use of facciata to
the mid-trecento: ‘The Italian City,
1400–1600’, in Italian Renaissance
Architecture from Brunelleschi to
Michelangelo, H. Millon ed. (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1994), p. 210.
47. Giorgio Vasari, ‘Introduzione
all’architettura’ (from Vite, 2nd ed.,
1568), in Trattati, ed. Renato Bonelli
(Milan, 1985) 161. Scamozzi, L’idea,
vol. 1, bk. 3, 318–19; H. Wooten,
Elements of Architecture (1624;
London, 1723), xv. See, Burroughs,
The Renaissance Facade, 31–32. For
the modern relevance of facade as
face, see A. Vidler, The Architectural
Uncanny (Cambridge, 1992), pp.
84–99.
48. G. B. Della Porta, La fisonomia
dell’uomo (1586; Vicenza, 1615), pp.
70–72 and 114–15. The likening of
building apertures to sense-
openings is ancient and perennial:
eg. Plato, Timaeus, 44–45; Luca
Pacioli, ‘De divina proportione’
(1509), in Scritti rinascimentali di
architettura, ed. A. Bruschi, et al.
(Milan: Il Polifilo, 1978), pp. 95–96.
On this, see Gottlieb, The Window in
Art, pp. 47–51, 204–05, 246–48.
49. ‘… la porte située dans le milieu
d’un batiment, et les fenestres à
droite et à gauche en distances
égales du milieu, de même
hauteur, de largeur égale en celles
qui se respondent ... nous donnent
un plaisir naturel, parce que ces
dispositions imitent de près ce qui
fait la beauté d’un visage ou d’un
corps, c’est á dire la situation
regulière de la bouche au milieu,
celle des yeux, des narines, des
sourcils, des joues, des oreilles, des
bras, des jambes etc., qui sont de
même niveau, et en distances
egales à droite et à gauche du
milieu de ce corps ou de ce visage.’
Blondel, Cours, 766. Blondel, 463,
had earlier cited and commented
on Scamozzi’s face/facade analogy.
Germain Boffrand, Livre
d’architecture (Paris, 1745) 17, also
exemplified perfect disposition by
Nature’s arrangement of the
human face. Views of C. Perrault in
Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of
Columns, after the Method of the
Ancients (1683), intro. A. Perez-
Gomez, trans. I. Kagis McEwen
(Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1993), pp. 47–52.
50. On this topic, see L. Lowic, ‘The
Meaning and Significance of the
Kohane & Hill
 156 arq . vol 10 . no 2 . 2006 history
Human Analogy in Francesco di
Giorgio’s Trattato’, Journal of the
Society of Architectural Historians, 42
(1983), pp. 363–66; O. Ungers, ‘Ordo,
fondo et mensura: the Criteria of
Architecture’, in H. Millon, Italian
Renaissance Architecture from
Brunelleschi to Michelangelo, pp.
307–17.
51. Milizia, Principj, vol. 2, p. 80.
Auguste Perret’s championing of
the porte fenêtre was on the same
grounds: ‘La fenêtre verticale
encadre l’homme, elle est d’accord
avec sa silhouette ... la ligne
verticale est celle da la station
debout, c’est la ligne de vie.’
Reichlin, ‘Stories of Windows’, in
Lampugnani, Architecture of the
Window, p. 106.
52. Ware, Complete Body, p. 446.
53. Alberti, Ten Books, bk. 1, ch. 12,
p. 30.
54. Chambers, Civil Architecture, pp.
122–123. Compare this with
Laugier’s hatred of niches: ‘Qu’est-
ce en effet qu’une niche? … Je ne
crois pas que le bon sens puisse
s’accommoder de voir une statue
placée dans une fenêtre taillée en
tour creuse. Mon antipathie contre
les niches est invincible ...’ Laugier,
Essai, p. 52.
55. J. Connors, Borromini and the Roman
Oratory: Style and Society (Cambridge,
Mass: MIT Press, 1980), p. 33.
56. A. Horn-Oncken traced the kinship
of Vitruvius’ decor to venustas,
namely the aesthetic category
architecture. ‘Über Das
Schickliche’, Studien zur Geschichte
Kohane & Hill The decorum of doors and windows, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1359135506000224 Published online by Cambridge University Press
der Architekturtheorie (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967),
pp. 35–37. The general significance
(with further references) of
decorum in architectural theory
was outlined in Hill and Kohane,
‘The Eclipse of a Commonplace
Idea: Decorum in Architectural
Theory’, arq 5, n. 1 (March, 2001),
pp. 63–77.
57. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.27.98 and
1.35.126; De Oratore, 3.45. B. Vickers,
In Defence of Rhetoric (Oxford:
Oxford UP, 1988), p. 16 and passim,
identifies this broader idea of
decorum with the concept of
organic unity, describing it as one
of the abiding principles of
expressive theory. The theme is
discussed in relation to post-
Renaissance architectural theory
by C. van Eck, Organicism in
Nineteenth-Century Architecture
(Amsterdam: Architecture and
Nature Press, 1994), pp. 20–50.
Illustration credits
arq gratefully acknowledges:
Bayerische StaatsBibliothek, 12, 15
Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milan, 21
Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, 23
M. Hill, 3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 22, 24
P. Kohane, 2, 5, 6, 19
Soprintendenza alle Gallerie,
Florence, 16
Wei Yee Teng, 20
Biographies
Michael Hill is an art historian
specialising in the Baroque. His recent
publications include, ‘Baciccio’s
Portrait of Cardinal Giulio Spinola’, in
D. Marshall, ed., The Italians in
Australia: Studies in Renaissance and
Baroque Art (Florence: Centro Di, 2004);
‘Cardinal Scipione Borghese and the
Restoration of S. Crisogono, 1618–28’,
Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, vol. 60, n. 4, 2001, 432–49.
Peter Kohane is an architect and
historian with a special research
interest in the work of C. R. Cockerell
and Louis Kahn. A forthcoming study
of Kahn’s ideas will be published in
2007: ‘Agreement and Decorum in the
Architecture of Louis Kahn’, in X.
Ruan and P. Hogben eds., Topophilia
and Topophobia, Routledge.
Peter and Michael together work on
decorum and its applications. In 2001
they published ‘Eclipse of a
Commonplace Idea: Decorum in
Architectural Theory’, Architectural
Research Quarterly (vol. 5, March); they
are currently writing a study of
architectural profiles.
Authors’ addresses
Peter Kohane
Faculty of Built Environment
University of New South Wales, 2052
Australia
p.kohane@unsw.edu.au
Michael Hill
Department of Art History and
Theory
National Art School
Forbes St East
Sydney, 2010, Australia
michaelrh@fbe.unsw.edu.au