The volute was a spiral carved into the capital of a column. The Ionic column. The one with the scrolls. Two spirals curling outward from the center like ram horns or like waves breaking on both sides of a rock. The volute was the column crown. The Doric column had a plain cap. The Corinthian column had leaves. The Ionic column had the spiral. The spiral said this column is not just holding the roof up. This column is thinking about something.

The spiral is mathematics. The volute follows a logarithmic curve. The same curve as the nautilus shell and the hurricane and the galaxy. The Greek mason did not know the mathematics. The Greek mason knew the shape. The shape appeared in every natural thing that grows outward from a center and the mason put the natural shape on the man-made column and the column became something between nature and architecture. The volute was the hinge between what grows and what is built.

The volute was carved from a single block. The mason drew the spiral on the face of the stone and cut the spiral with a chisel and mallet. One wrong strike and the spiral broke and the block was ruined and the mason started over with a new block. The volute took three days to carve. Three days for two spirals that most people would never look up to see. The mason carved them anyway. The mason carved them because the column needed them. The building did not ask whether anyone would notice. The building asked whether the work was complete.

The stair had a volute too. The handrail at the bottom of the staircase curled outward into a spiral that the hand wrapped around before beginning the climb. The stair volute was the handshake between the person and the staircase. The hand met the spiral and the spiral said start here. The spiral gave the hand a place to begin. Every journey needs a place to begin and the volute was that place. The spiral said the climb starts with a curve not a straight line. The curve was the warmup. The straight rail was the work.

They cast volutes in fiberglass now. The fiberglass volute goes on the fiberglass column and the fiberglass column holds up the fiberglass pediment and the whole facade is a sentence written in a language that sounds like Greek but means nothing. The carved volute took three days because the mason was having a conversation with the stone. The fiberglass volute took three minutes because there was no conversation. The mold does not talk to the resin. The resin does not talk to the column. The facade is a monologue delivered in a dead language to an audience that does not speak it.

See also: Pilaster, Bannister