In architecture, an engaged column is a column embedded in a wall and partly projecting from the surface of the wall, sometimes defined as semi or three-quarter detached. Engaged columns are rarely found in classical Greek architecture, and then only in exceptional cases, but in Roman architecture they exist in profusion, most commonly embedded in the cella walls of pseudoperipteral buildings
Engaged columns serve a similar function as wall buttresses but are distinct from pilasters, which by definition are ornamental and not structural.
Famous quotes containing the words engaged and/or column:
“The frantic search of five-year-olds for friends can thus be seen to forecast the beginnings of a basic shift in the parent-child relationship, a shift which will occur gradually over many long years, and in which a child needs not only the support of child allies engaged in the same struggle but also the understanding of his parents.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Never have anything to do with the near surviving representatives of anyone whose name appears in the death column of the Times as having “passed away.””
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)