A lesene is a flat, vertical strip of wall that projects slightly from the facade plane and divides the facade into fields. What is characteristic is what a lesene does not have: no base and no capital. It runs from bottom to top as a plain band.
That is exactly where it differs from a pilaster. A pilaster is a flat, engaged column, complete with base, shaft and capital, following the proportions of an architectural order. The lesene is strip only. In English it is also called a pilaster strip.
Where you see lesenes
The lesene is above all an element of Romanesque architecture. On Romanesque churches and monasteries, lesenes stand at regular intervals along the facade and around the apse, linked at the top by blind arcading — a row of small round arches beneath the eaves. That combination of lesene and arched corbel table is one of the clearest identifying features of Romanesque work; in German it is called Lisene and Rundbogenfries.
The element remained in use afterwards as well:
- In brick Gothic, where lesenes and blind panels give articulation to the flat brick facades of churches and town halls.
- In the nineteenth-century revival styles, in which Romanesque and Gothic motifs were deliberately taken up again.
- In twentieth-century brick architecture and in modern facades, where a vertically stepped area of brickwork gives the same effect without any historical reference.
Function
The lesene is usually seen as decorative, but it does more than decorate:
- It gives scale and rhythm. A long, blank wall reads as flat and endless without articulation. Lesenes break that wall into legible fields.
- It expresses the structure. In many cases the lesene coincides with the point where a wall pier, a transverse arch or a bay division sits inside. The articulation outside then shows how the building is divided within.
- It stiffens slightly. A projecting strip gives a thin wall a little extra resistance to buckling. That effect is modest and rarely the reason for it, but it is real.
- It helps the bricklaying. The field between two lesenes — the blind panel — can be built slightly thinner, saving masonry and material.
The distinction in one sentence
If you can see a base and a capital: pilaster. If you see a plain strip running unbroken from plinth to eaves, often ending in a row of small arches: lesene.
Related terms
- Pilaster
- Blind arcading
- Blind panel
- Wall pier
- Romanesque architecture
- Bay
- Facade articulation
- Capital
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