Greek Architecture in Cowtown: Yippie Yi Rho Chi Yay

There were three orders in classical Greek architecture (even the word architecture is Greek, meaning “main builder”), and all three orders can be found in Fort Worth, especially in columns and their capitals. Pack a bottle of ouzo and a wedge of feta as we saddle up and go in search of Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian.

Doric

Doric is the oldest and simplest order. The shaft of a Doric column tapers from bottom to top and is usually fluted. (When not fluted, a Doric columns looks a lot like a later Roman variant, the Tuscan column.) The Doric column generally has neither a base nor a detailed capital. Here are (left) the north wing of the Ann Waggoner Fine Arts Building at TWU (1923) and, at Oakwood Cemetery, the family mausoleum of Christopher Rintleman (1852-1890), owner of the Local Option Saloon in Hell’s Half Acre. Rintleman advertised that his saloon had the “worse liquors, poorest cigars, and miserable billiard tables.” Judging from his final resting place, that business model served him well.

More Doric columns at Greenwood Cemetery.

Doric capital of the old I. M. Terrell school (1910).

A house on 5th Avenue.

Ionic

An Ionic column has a shaft that is more slender than that of a Doric column. The capital usually has egg-and-dart decoration and volutes (scrolls). Here are Mt. Zion Baptist Church (1921) and the Simpson Building (originally First National Bank, 1910, Sanguinet and Staats). (Mt. Zion has egg-and-dart decoration; Simpson does not.)

Pollock-Capps house (1899).

And, of course, there are hybrids. For example, the columns of Thistle Hill (1904, Sanguinet and Staats) have egg-and-dart decoration of the Ionic (see enlargement inset lower right) but no volutes.

Likewise, the capitals of the columns in the lobby of the central post office (1933, Hedrick) have egg-and-dart decoration but no volutes.

Corinthian

A Corinthian capital is decorated with volutes like the Ionic and leaves of the acanthus, a Mediterranean flowering plant.

Ball-Eddleman-McFarland house (1899, Messer).

First Christian Church (1916, Van Slyke) exterior.

First Christian Church interior.

Central Library (1978.)

Composite

There is a fourth order: Composite, which is a late Roman development of the Greeks’ Corinthian. A Composite capital has the volutes of the Ionic order and the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order. However, Composite volutes are often bigger than Ionic volutes. A Composite capital also has egg-and-dart decoration.

Burk Burnett Building (1914, Sanguinet and Staats). The egg-and-dart decoration between the volutes is stylized.

Travis Avenue Baptist Church (1959, Geren).

Cowrinthian

Of course, Fort Worth has its own version of the Corinthian column—cowrinthian—at the central post office.

After all, y’all, the twelfth letter of the Greek alphabet is mu:

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