Post and lintel
Vertical posts support horizontal lintels, the oldest skeletal principle for making openings and spans.
The Parthenon’s columns and entablature represent stone post-and-lintel construction at its highest refinement. Beam bending and shear limit the span.
Timber beams and purlins, steel frames, and reinforced-concrete frames follow the same load path in different materials.
Short stone lintels constrain openings, while long ones crack or sag. Arches and vaults emerged partly to exceed this limitation.
Modern podiums, entrances, and colonnaded lobbies may deliberately express the ancient system as a legible structural language.
