|
|
A colonnade of single columns is often termed a screen. When in front of a building, screening the door (Latin porta), it is called a portico, when enclosing an open court, a peristyle. A portico may be more than one rank of columns deep, as at the Pantheon in Rome. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade, but the porch of columns that surrounds a peripteral Classical temple (such as the Lincoln Memorial) can be termed a colonnade. Since the largest number of columns across the front of a classical temple front is normally eight (constituting an octastyle temple), it might be argued that a colonnade must have more than eight pairs. Certainly the proportions of a colonnade require that it be more than twice as long as it is tall.
At the British Museum porticos are continued along the front as a colonnade.