Glossary of Architecture - D

D

Diastyle

Term used to designate an intercolumniation of three or four diameters.

Diaulos

Peristyle round the great court of the palaestra, described by Vitruvius, which measured two stadia (1,200 ft.) in length, on the south side this peristyle had two rows of columns, so that in stormy weather the rain might not be driven into the inner part. The word was also used in ancient Greece for a foot race of twice the usual length.

Diazoma

A horizontal aisle in an ancient Greek theater that separates the lower and upper tiers of semi-circular seating and intersects with the vertical aisles.

Dikka

Islamic architectural term for the tribune raised upon columns, from which the Koran is recited and the prayers intoned by the Imam of the mosque.

Dipteral

Temples which have a double range of columns in the peristyle, as in the temple of Diana at Ephesus.

Distyle

Having two columns

An architectural term for a portico having two columns between two anta

Dodecastyle

Temple where the portico has twelve columns in front, as in the portico added to the Temple of Demeter at Eleusis, designed by Philo, the architect of the arsenal at the Peiraeus.

Doric order -

One of the three orders or organisational systems of Ancient Greek or classical architecture characterised by columns which stood on the flat pavement of a temple without a base, their vertical shafts fluted with parallel concave grooves topped by a smooth capital that flared from the column to meet a square abacus at the intersection with the horizontal beam that they carried.

Dormer

A structural element of a building that protrudes from the plane of a sloping roof surface. Dormers are used, either in original construction or as later additions, to create usable space in the roof of a building by adding headroom and usually also by enabling addition of windows.

Dosseret, or impost block

Cubical block of stone above the capitals in a Byzantine church, used to carry the arches and vault, the springing of which had a superficial area greatly in excess of the column which carried them.

Dromos

Entrance passage or avenue leading to a building, tomb or passageway. Those leading to beehive tombs are enclosed between stone walls and sometimes in-filled between successive uses of the tomb. In ancient Egypt the dromos was a straight, paved avenue flanked by sphinxes.