Ionic order

Closeup of Ionic Order Column. The scroll-like ornament at the top of the column is a volute

The Ionic order is one of the three main classical orders (styles) of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order and the Corinthian order (which gave rise to the Composite order). The Ionic capital is notable for its use of volutes. The Ionic columns normally stand on a base which separates the shaft of the column from the stylobate or platform. The cap is usually enriched with egg-and-dart. It was a popular style in Athens. The Athenians considered themselves Ionians.

Ionic Order Media

• 

  Architects' first real look at the Greek Ionic order: Julien David LeRoy, Les ruines plus beaux des monuments de la Grèce Paris, 1758 (Plate XX)

• 

  Ionic order: 1 – entablature, 2 – column, 3 – pediment, 4 – frieze, 5 – architrave or epistyle, 6 – capital (composed of abacus and volutes), 7 – shaft, 8 – base, 9 – stylobate, 10 – krepis

• 

  Ionic capital at the Erechtheum (Athens), 5th century BC

• 

  Original polychromy in Ionic temples

• 

  Ancient Greek Archaic Ionic capital of the Sphinx of Naxos, c.560 BC, Naxian marble, Delphi Archaeological Museum, Delphi, Greece

• 

  Ancient Greek Ionic order of the Temple of Artemis Agrotera, Athens, c.440 BC-destroyed in 1778

• 

  Ancient Near Eastern Ionic columns of a rock-cut tomb at Qyzqapan, Iraq, unknown architect, 5th-4th centuries BC

• 

  Roman Ionic corner capital from the Temple of Portunus, Rome, with two sides with volutes, and one for the corner of the facade projecting at a 45° angle, unknown architect, early 4th century BC

• 

  Roman Ionic columns of a colonnade of the oval plaza in Jerash, Jordan, unknown architect, 2nd-3rd centuries AD

• 

  Roman Ionic columns of the Temple of Saturn, Rome, with diagonal volutes, unknown architect, 3rd of 4th centuries