A twisted cluster column — Dutch kluwenzuil — is a column that looks as though it is made up of two or more columns wound around one another. The shaft reads as several strands twisted together like a rope, usually over the full height between base and capital.
It is nearly always an illusion: the column is cut from a single block or built up from drums, and the interlacing exists only in the carving. Only on slender shafts, for instance in a cloister arcade, do the strands actually stand clear of each other.
Related column types
- Knotted column — a cluster column in which the strands appear tied into a knot halfway up
- Solomonic or spiral column — a single shaft twisted in a spiral; not a cluster column
- Coupled columns — two separate shafts side by side on one base, without interlacing
The general English term twisted column covers all of these and is therefore imprecise; it usually describes the single spiral shaft.
Where you find it
- Cloister arcades — above all in Romanesque and early Gothic monasteries in Italy, France and Spain
- Church portals and facade articulation
- Ciboria, altar canopies and fonts
- Nineteenth-century revival architecture and furniture, which took the motif up again
Practical tips
- Expect fragile detail — the narrow hollows between strands are the first place frost and soiling attack; clean natural stone gently and never at high pressure
- Measure before dismantling — the direction of twist and the number of strands often vary from column to column; record it with photographs and dimensions
- Repair with a mortar softer than the stone, so that future damage shows in the repair rather than in the original
Related terms
- Knotted column
- Column
- Twisted column
- Coupled columns
- Shaft
- Capital
- Column base
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