What Is a Portico?

The grand entrance of a classical building — a roof carried on a row of columns, projecting forward to shelter the front door and announce the way in — is a portico. It is one of the most recognisable features in architecture, found on Greek temples, Roman public buildings, country houses, banks, courthouses and government buildings the world over. The portico does three things at once: it shelters the entrance, it gives the building dignity, and it tells you where to go in.

This article explains what a portico is, where the idea came from, how it is put together, the main types architects distinguish, and why this ancient device is still used on important buildings today.

What a portico is

A portico is a covered porch or entrance structure consisting of a roof supported by columns, usually projecting from or attached to the front of a building and aligned with its main door. Above the columns runs an entablature — the horizontal band of architrave, frieze and cornice — and the roof is often crowned at the front by a triangular pediment, the gable that gives so many porticoes their temple-front look.

A portico is closely related to the colonnade and the porch. A colonnade is a row of columns that may run along a building or stand free; a portico is specifically the columned, roofed structure that marks and shelters an entrance. The number of columns across its front gives it a name — a four-column front is tetrastyle, six is hexastyle, eight is octastyle.

Where the portico came from

The portico descends directly from the temple architecture of ancient Greece. The Greek temple presented a columned front carrying an entablature and pediment — the original temple front — and this image became the model for the formal entrance in Western architecture. The Romans adopted it widely, placing deep porticoes on temples and public buildings; the Pantheon’s great columned porch is among the most famous.

The temple front carried such strong associations of dignity, permanence and civic importance that it was revived again and again. During the Renaissance and especially the later classical revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the portico became the standard way to give a building gravitas. Country houses, museums, banks, universities and the seats of government adopted the columned, pedimented porch precisely because it borrowed the authority of the ancient temple. Many national capitols and civic buildings still wear it.

How a portico is put together

Structurally a portico is a simple post-and-beam frame, like a colonnade serving a single entrance. The columns carry the load of the roof and entablature straight down to the ground in compression. The entablature spans horizontally between the column tops, carrying the roof load back to the columns. Behind or between the columns, the roof connects to the main building.

The proportions of a classical portico are governed by the architectural orders — Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and their variants — which set the ratio of column height to diameter, the spacing between columns, and the design of the entablature and capitals. These were not arbitrary; close column spacing kept the spanning stone members short enough to avoid bending failure, while the orders gave a coherent system of proportion. On a modern portico the columns and beam may be reinforced concrete or steel clad to look like stone, which allows wider spacing than solid stone permitted.

Types of portico

Architects classify porticoes mainly by how they relate to the building:

Prostyle portico: projects forward from the face of the building, standing in front of it with columns only across the front.
Portico in antis: recessed into the building, set back between projecting sections of the side walls (the antae), so the columns sit within the wall line rather than in front of it.
Pedimented portico: any portico crowned by a triangular pediment, giving the classic temple-front appearance.
Portico by column count: tetrastyle, hexastyle, octastyle and so on, naming the number of columns across the front.

A portico may also be a single storey or rise the full height of the building as a “giant” or “colossal” portico, with columns spanning two or more floors — a device much used on grand houses and public buildings to convey monumentality.

The portico today

The full classical portico is less common in contemporary design, where entrances tend to be expressed in glass, canopy and structure rather than columns and pediments. But the portico’s underlying functions endure. Every well-designed entrance still needs to shelter people from sun and rain, to be clearly legible as the way in, and to give the building an appropriate sense of arrival. Modern porte-cochères, entrance canopies and columned forecourts are the portico’s practical descendants.

For buildings in tropical climates, the portico’s shading and shelter functions are especially valuable, keeping rain off the entrance and sun off the facade. Whether you are restoring a heritage portico or designing a contemporary sheltered entrance, the columns and roof beam still have to carry their loads safely, and the connection back to the main building must be detailed for movement and weather. Our structural-engineering consultancy can advise on both new and historic porticoes.

Frequently asked questions

What is a portico?

A portico is a covered porch at a building’s entrance, formed by a roof supported on columns and usually projecting forward to shelter the main door, often crowned at the front by a triangular pediment in the classical temple-front manner.

What is the difference between a portico and a porch?

A porch is any covered structure at an entrance, while a portico is specifically a porch whose roof is carried on columns in the classical manner; every portico is a kind of porch, but not every porch is a portico.

What is the difference between a portico and a colonnade?

A colonnade is a row of columns that may run along a building or stand free as a walkway, while a portico is specifically the columned, roofed structure that marks and shelters a building’s entrance.

What is a pedimented portico?

A pedimented portico is one crowned by a pediment — the triangular gable above the entablature — which gives the entrance the classic temple-front appearance seen on temples, civic buildings and grand houses.

Are porticoes still used in modern architecture?

Full classical porticoes are less common today, but their functions live on in entrance canopies, porte-cochères and columned forecourts that shelter the entrance, mark the way in, and give the building a sense of arrival.

Restoring a heritage portico or designing a sheltered entrance and need the structure verified? Talk to our consultancy or get in touch.