Dynasty

Dynasty (pronounced dahy-nuh-stee (US English); din-uh-stee (UK English)

(1) A sequence of rulers from the same family, stock, or group.

(2) The rule of such a sequence.

(3) A series of members of a family who are distinguished for their success in business, wealth creation etc.

(4) In sport, a team or organization which has an extended period of success or dominant performance (technically unrelated to family links or even and great continuity in personnel).

(5) As used specifically in East Asian history, the polity or historical era under the rule of a certain dynasty.

1425-1475: From the Middle English dynastia, from the Middle French dynastie, from the Late Latin dynastia, from the Ancient Greek δυναστεία (dunasteía) (power, dominion, lordship, sovereignty) from dynasthai (have power), of unknown origin.  The adjective dynastic (from 1800) is used when speaking or, relating to or pertaining to a dynasty; dynastical attested since 1730.  A dynast (hereditary ruler) is from the 1630s, from the Late Latin dynastes, from the Greek dynastes (ruler, chief, lord, master).  The synonyms include house & lineage.  Dynasty & dynast are nouns, dynastic & dynastical are adjectives and dynastically is an adverb; the noun plural is dynasties.

The word is widely used of the ruling families of nations associated with royalty (Hapsburg dynasty, Romanov dynasty, Hohenzollern dynasty etc) and remains the standard term in the historiography of Imperial China (Ming dynasty, Qing dynasty, Song dynasty, Tang dynasty, Yuan dynasty etc).  In political science it’s a popular use (verging on a slur) to describe the political arrangements concocted when a ruler attempts (sometimes with success) to pass the office (and thus their country) to a descendent (usually the eldest or most demonstrably ruthless son), examples including the Congo, Syria, Cambodia and the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Sometimes, polities organized in this manner can give rise to what is known as a subdynasty (which seems never to hyphenated), an idea borrowed from European history when royal families routinely would provide offspring to serve as kings of other states, thereby creating a new dynasty; sometimes this worked well, sometimes not.

In politics, families which some characterize as appearing dynastic can be very sensitive to anything which seems even to hint at the suggestion and the Lee family in Singapore is the standard case study.  Between the rule of Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015; Prime Minister of Singapore 1959-1990) and that of his son Lee Hsien Loong (b 1952; Prime Minister of Singapore since 2004-2024) there was gap of over a dozen years (which must not be called an interregnum) and there was of some interest in whether a similar mechanism would be engineered to enable a third generation to assume office, the previous successor designate having been removed from the plan because of “some unsuitability”.  According to certain Western commentators, Mr Lee delayed stepping down from the premiership (to become "Senior Minister", the same path taken by his father and not wholly different for the approach of Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022)) so a “long runway” cold be laid onto which the next prime minister can emerge (the word “runway” used in the modern sense of the “catwalk” on which models strut their stuff rather than anything to do with aviation).

Something in common: Lee Hsien Loong and Klyie Jenner.

As things turned out, in 2024, Lawrence Wong Shyun Tsai (b 1972) became the city state's fourth prime minister.  While Li Hongyi (b 1987; first-born child of Lee Hsien Loong), has disavowed any interest in a political career, there’s still plenty of time and if, in the fullness of time, “drafted” by the ruling PAP (the People’s Action Party which has been in power since independence in 1959), he may feel it his duty to be “be persuaded”.  Li Hongyi may however believe his lineage is too great a disadvantage to overcome.  Earlier, Lee Hsien Loong dismissed suggestions his stellar career (becoming at becoming at 32 the youngest brigadier-general in the history of the Singapore military and prime minister at 53) owed anything to family connections, claiming being the prime minister’s son actually hindered him because people were so anxious to avoid accusations of favoritism.  Interestingly, entertainment personality Kylie Jenner (b 1997) made much the point, claiming it was belonging to a famous family which saw her denied some modelling work.  The Lee family though do seem unusually sensitive to suggestions the scions might unduly benefit from the connection, the Financial Times in 2007 even having to apologize for having published not anything libellous (actually easily done in Singapore) but simply a list of Lee family members appointed to high positions in the state.  The current derogatory slang is “nepo baby”, a clipping of "nepotism baby", a term one is unlikely to read in the Singaporean press.

Kim I, II & III: The Kim Dynasty, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, aka North Korea)

Kim I: Kim Il-Sung (1912-1994; The Great Leader of DPRK, 1948-1994, left).  Like his descendants, The Dear Leader and The Supreme Leader, The Great Leader enjoyed food.  He’s pictured here at lunch with another foodie, comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader, 1924-1953, right).

Kim Il-Sung held an array of titles during his decades as the DPRK’s dictator, the proliferation not unusual in communist nations where the ruling party’s structures are maintained alongside the formal titles of state with which governments conduct relations with foreign powers.  In office for a remarkable 45 years, he was designated premier (head of government) between 1948-1972 and president 1972-1994.  He was head of the WPK (Workers' Party of Korea) between 1949-1994 and in that role successively was styled as Chairman (1949-1966) and General Secretary (after 1966).  During his 45-year rule, there were ten US presidents, six RoK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)) presidents, nine British prime ministers and ten Australian prime ministers.  He tenure in office also spanned the era of the Soviet Union from its apotheosis under comrade Stalin to its collapse in 1991.  Being dead however proved no obstacle to The Great Leader extending his presidency, the collective office Chuch'ejosŏnŭi yŏngwŏnhan suryŏng (Eternal leaders of Juche Korea) created in 2016 by the insertion of an enabling line in the preamble to the constitution.  What this amendment did was formalise the position of The Great Leader and his late son comrade Kim Jong-Il (1941–2011; The Dear Leader of DPRK 1994-2011)) as the “eternal leaders” of the DPRK.  Juche is the term used to describe the DPRK’s national philosophy, a synthesis of The Great Leader’s interpretation of (1) Korean tradition and (2) Marxist-Leninist theory.

Funeral cortege of The Great Leader, 1994.

It was an interesting move.  Constitutionally, the office of president in its executive form was codified only in 1972; prior to that the role of head of state had been purely ceremonial and held by trusted party functionaries, all power exercised by The Great Leader in his capacity as premier and WPK general secretary.  However, merely by being president The Great Leader vested the office with such an aura that upon his death in 1994, the position was left vacant, The Dear Leader not granted the title.  That nuance of semi-succession for a while absorbed the interest of the DPRK watchers but attempts to invest the move with any significance abated as DPRK business, though in the more straitened circumstances of the post Soviet world, continued as usual.  The constitution was again revised in 1998.  Being a godless communist state, no fine theological points stood in the way of declaring The Great Leader the DPRK’s "Eternal President", the latest addition to the preamble declaring:

Under the leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Korean people will hold the great leader Comrade Kim Il-Sung in high esteem as the eternal President of the Republic.

The constitution, as revised and promulgated after the death of The Dear Leader, again referred to The Great Leader as "Eternal President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea" but in 2016 (The Dear Leader having apparently been dead for what must have been judged a decent duration), another amendment to the preamble changed the administrative nomenclature of executive eternity to "eternal leaders of Juche Korea", the honor now jointly held by the leaders great & dear, one dead, one alive.  It was another first for the Kims.

Kim II: Kim Jong-Il (1941–2011; The Dear Leader of DPRK, 1994-2011) in Prussian blue pantsuit, 593 Military Unit's Commander School (secret location undisclosed), 21 June, 2010.

DPRK generals wear big hats and always carry a notebook in case the closest Kim says something interesting.  They write it down and because every thing said is interesting, all in the entourage go through many notebooks.  DPRK watchers have concluded that because of the nature of the regime, it's unlikely any of these notebooks have been discarded so there must be a large number of them stored around the country. 

As a political construct, the DPRK is best thought of as a hereditary theocracy because what's expected of citizens is not mere veneration of the Kims but a form of worship.  Although opaque, its dynamics are now better understood but when in 1994 The Great Leader died, neither within the country nor beyond was there wide understanding how much of the power structure he controlled had passed to The Dear Leader.  Following the collapse of the Soviet Union which had provided the DPRK with much financial and other aid, the economic circumstances were hardly propitious but there seems never to have been any doubt about the formal succession, The Dear Leader having been anointed for more than a decade.  The DPRK’s propaganda machine, while not in the conventional Western sense having a middle class to be made “quite prepared”, did have the had the rest of the country to work on and for years Kim Jong-Il had gradually been eased into photo opportunities with The Great Leader, eventually making even solo appearances, sometimes in the role of Supreme Commander of the KPA (Korean People's Army) to which he’d been appointed in 1991, despite having no military background.  However, given most of the generals and admirals (despite their impressive display of decorations and other medals) also have little experience of active combat, this was less of a problem than it might have seemed.

There must in the mind of the Great Leader been some concerns a dynasty might not evolve because, perhaps now aware of his own mortality, The Great Leader in the years before death made the effort to "clear the decks" for the succession, purging the military and civilian ranks of any difficult types who might prove potential obstacles in the path of Kim Jong-Il's ascent.  Some of the purged went into enforced retirement while the deaths of others (presumably suspected recalcitrants) was announced although that may have been a coincidence; the DPRK may be a theocracy but its military and political elite are gerontocracies so senior figures dropping dead from old age is not rare.  Anyway, the path was smoothed and, the military command settled, in 1992, The Great Leader announced Kim Jong-Il was now in charge of all the DPRK’s internal affairs.  Curiously, shortly after that, the media began using of him the honorific “Dear Father” instead of “Dear Leader” but for whatever reason, all official communications soon reverted to the latter which first had appeared a couple of years earlier.

Kim Jong-Il with the judging committee at the annual "DPRK Biggest Watermelon Competition", Pyongyang, August, 2010.

Despite all the dynastic help, indications are it took The Dear Leader sometime fully to assert his authority.  Seriously weird it may appear but, the WPK is just another political party and it too has factions; in the difficult post-Soviet environment of the 1994 succession, DPRK-watchers detected signs of genuine internal debates about how to deal with the economic problems faced.  The adjustments frankly didn’t go well for many North Korean citizens (some of whom starved to death) but while The Dear Leader may not have learned much economic theory, he proved adept at consolidating his power, adopting the Songun (military first) policy, granting the military priority in resource allocation and political influence, not out of any concern about foreign invasion but to ensure the loyalty of what was, in effect, a giant police apparatus tasked with protecting the Kim dynasty from "problems from within", the slightest hint of dissent met with the "good, hard crackdown" which is a signature tactic of dictatorships in managing their highest priority: regime survival.  Secure in office, spasmodically, The Dear Leader did attempt the implement the odd economic reform but the results were not impressive; despite that, efficient internal repression ensured the family's business as usual continued.

Dynastic family planning.

Kim Jong-Il shaking hands with Japanese-born singer Ko Yong-hui (aka Takada Hime, 1952-2004) circa 1972.  She became his consort and would later give birth to Kim Jong-Un.  Within the DPRK, her name must never be spoken and she's referred to only by honorific forms, the most commonly used being: “The Respected Mother who is the Most Faithful and Loyal 'Subject' to the Dear Leader Comrade Supreme Commander”.

By 1997, The Dear Leader sufficiently was entrenched in power to engineer his appointment to The Great Leader's old post as General Secretary of the WPK and, a year later, a constitutional amendment declared his role as chairman of the NDC (National Defence Commission) was "the highest post of the state", presumably among those still alive because the same constitutional reform proclaimed The Great Leader to be the DPRK’s "Eternal President".  Complicating things further, the Dear Leader's career progression was mapped onto the 2012 constitutional amendments in which The Dear Leader’s had been declared "Eternal General Secretary of the WPK and Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission".  In any other country this may have been thought an anomaly to be clarified but in the DPRK it's all part of the mystique of the personality cults of the Kims.  In 2016, after a decent period of mourning, the new title "Eternal Leaders of Juche Korea" was created and conferred on both The Great Leader & Dear Leader, the internal logic again perfect.

The reputation of the DPRK as a hermit state cloaked in secrecy is not wholly undeserved but what was published by the energetic and highly productive KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) was an official biography of The Dear Leader and it must from his earliest years have been obvious he was extraordinary.  He was born inside a log cabin beneath Korea’s most sacred mountain and in the moment of delivery, a shooting star brought forth a spontaneous change from winter to summer and there appeared in the sky, the biggest, brightest rainbow ever seen.  The Dear Leader turned out to be not subject to bowel movements, never needing to defecate or urinate (although evidence suggests this is not a genetic characteristic of the dynasty and not shared by his son & successor).  He had a most discriminating palette so prior to his meals being prepared, several staff assiduously by hand inspected every grain of rice to ensure each was of uniform length, plumpness, and color, The Dear Leader eating only "perfect" rice.  Although he only ever played one round of golf and that on the country’s notoriously difficult 7,700 yard (7040 metre) course at Pyongyang, he took only 34 strokes to complete the 18 holes, a round which included five holes-in-one.  Although the scorecard was verified by all 17 of the bodyguards on duty at the course, experienced golfers have cast doubt on the round of 34 (not commenting on the holes-in-one) but the diet of individually inspected & polished grains of rice was thought "at least plausible".  

Funeral cortege of The Dear Leader, 2011.

The funeral cars were 1975 or 1976 Lincoln Continentals, built by Moloney Standard Coach Builders on an extended wheelbase.  Lincoln experts say it's a different car to the similar model used in The Great Leader's funeral, the dynasty said to own several and it's believed they were obtained "through sources in Japan".  Nor are the big Lincolns are the only machines of note in the state mews.  Uniquely, the Kim dynasty is the only family believed also to own a brace of Mercedes-Benz 600 (M100; 1963-1981) long-roof Landaulets, only twelve of which were built.  Fittingly, these variants with an extended length folding top casually are known as the "presidentials" but the factory never officially used the designation.  There were also 47 "standard" Landaulets with a shorter fabric soft-top.  

The Kims certainly are the subjects of some of the most elaborate personality cults ever but it’s not only the DPRK administration that creates retrospective honours to acknowledge the uniqueness of a special individual. George Washington (1732–1799; POTUS, 1789-1797) will forever be the first POTUS so that distinction was always secure but he retired from the army as a lieutenant general; that others since have been appointed to more senior ranks did disturb some in the military, concerned his primacy in the hierarchy wasn’t adequately honoured.  Perhaps surprisingly, in the US military, the system was finalized only this century and prior to 1944, the matter of stars and titles for generals had been a little confused, the whole order of precedence in the army since the Declaration of Independence only properly codified with some retrospective creations in 1976 and 2024.  Historically, the most senior rank in the US Army had been lieutenant general with first significant change effected in the post Civil War (1861-1865) era when the rank of “General of the Army” was gazetted and while nominally a four star appointment, structurally, it was the equivalent of what would in 1944 be formalized as five star rank.  However, in 1866, the significance of the title “General of the Army” was it reflected the appointee being the general with authority over the whole army which meant there could be only ever be one in active service.  In other words, that meant the four star general was commander-in-chief of the army and the paperwork had years earlier been prepared for Washington to be raised thus but this was never done because of concern among lawyers it might set a precedent and be seen to impinge upon a president’s authority as commander in chief of all forces.  Indeed, although later the US military would use titles such as “Commander in Chief, US Pacific Command”, Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) in 2002 ended the practice (and use of the acronym CINC) by re-asserting there was in the US: “only one commander in chief in America - the president”, spelled out in Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."  The matter of civilian authority over the military was one of the founding principles of the republic.

The next change came when General John "Black Jack" Pershing (1860–1948) who had commanded the US expeditionary forces in World War I (1914-1918) was in 1919 appointed to the then unique rank of “General of the Armies of the United States”.   At the time, the war was known as the "World War" (a suggestion by Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; POTUS 1913-1921)), the vast and bloody conflict already regarded as “the war to end all wars” and the feeling was the conflict had in scale and awfulness been unique so some special recognition was deserved.  Pershing however remained a four star general and confusingly, when the spate of five star appointments was made between 1944-1950, the old wording “General of the Army” was revived with the pecking order based on the gazetted date of appointment to the rank which no longer implied an individual having authority over the entire army.  There have since been no five star creations (although many other armies have continued to appoint field marshals which is the equivalent).  In the US, some historians and many in the military fretted over the untidiness of it all and in 1976, George Washington formerly was gazetted “General of the Armies of the United States with rank and precedence over all other grades of the Army, past or present”, meaning he will for all time be the US Army’s senior officer.  In 1944, there was also an amusing footnote which, according to legend, resulted in the decision to use the style “general” and not “marshal” (as many militaries do) because the first to be appointed was George Marshall (1880–1959; US Army chief of staff 1939-1945) and it was thought “Marshal Marshall” would be a bit naff, something Joseph Heller’s (1923-1999) character “Major Major” in Catch-22 (1961) would prove.  So, retrospective adjustments to hierarchies are not unique to the DPRK.

Kim III: Kim Jong-Un (b circa 1982; The Supreme Leader (originally The Great Successor) of DPRK since 2011).  The Supreme Leader is pictured here with South Korean foreign minister, Chung Eui-yong (b 1946).  In the North, the KCNA refers to South Korea as "the puppet state" [of the US].

Inheriting the family business, the country and its population at a much younger age than The Dear Leader, The Supreme Leader, didn’t benefit (or suffer) from the long public gestation period his father was provided by The Great Leader.  It was in 2009, about two years before The Dear Leader’s death that the media began reporting the youngest son was to be the DPRK’s next leader although at that stage, he was referred to as The Brilliant Comrade, the honorific The Great Successor not adopted until after The Dear Leader’s death and it was soon replaced by The Supreme Leader.  For whatever reason, and the speculation and conspiracy theories are many, Kim III more quickly assumed his panoply of offices and titles than his immediate ancestor.

The Supreme Leader leads the bowing ceremony before the portraits of the Great Leader (left) and Dear Leader (right), 9^th Congress of the WPK (Workers' Party of Korea), April 25 House of Culture, Pyongyang, 19-25 February 2026.  Unanimously, delegates paid tribute to the Supreme Leader and declared it the “best congress ever”.

Portraits of the Kims are of great significance to the regime.  In August 2023, with tropical storm Khanun bearing down on the DPRK coast, state media issued instructions that all citizens must “with urgency” and “at any cost” focus on “ensuring the safety” of items depicting the three members of the Kim dynasty.  Presumably because they would be more susceptible to the storm’s heavy rain and strong winds than sturdier objects like statues, the Rodong Sinmun (official newspaper of the ruling WPK) emphasized citizens’ “foremost focus” must be ensuring the preservation of portraits of the Kims although they did caution the need also to safeguard the large number of statues, mosaics, murals and other monuments to the dynasty which has ruled North Korea since its foundation in 1948.

Meeting of the WPK to commemorate the Supreme Leader’s tenth anniversary of his assumption of leadership of the party, Pyongyang, April 2022.  The Supreme Leader’s portrait is displayed in an oval which is not unusual in DPRK Kim iconography.

The order was an interesting insight into the way the regime regards the symbolism of representational objects as a part of its legitimacy but they have set the population an onerous task given the sheer volume of portraits which exist.  At least one each of the Great Leader & Dear Leader are known to hang in every house, café, bus, train carriage or shop and in larger public buildings there might literally be dozens.  In whatever form, the depictions are regarded as not merely symbolic but as sacred icons; just as every citizen must be willing (anxious even) to die protecting the leader, so must they be prepared to sacrifice themselves to save his portrait.  It's never been revealed whether any of the Kims read Oscar Wilde's (1854–1900) The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) but if so, they've learned well. 

Coriaceousness on legs: The Supreme Leader in black leather.

Fashionistas note the perception of black as a “slimming color” but caution the effect is attained through the interplay of optics, contrast perception and even cultural expectations rather than the color’s inherent properties.  Done well, it can work but success depends on design and fit; there are limitations so expectations have to be “realistic”.  Essentially, what use of solid black can do is: (1) Reduce visible contour information (although something really shiny like patent leather can make things worse) because less light is reflected, meaning shadows, folds and changes in body shape appear less are less visually distinct, details to some degree “flattened out”; (2) Minimize edge definition and contrasts in hues, human vision (for sound evolutionary reasons) drawn to highlights & boundaries so while light-colored fabrics generate stronger visual cues of volume and curvature, these black tends to suppress; (3) Exploit a trick from visual art in which darker tones appear to “recede” while the lighter “advance”.  The technicalities however operate in conjunction with the long-established cultural expectation; because the notion “black is a slimming color” has become a popular orthodoxy, viewers perceptions can be “pre-conditioned” and appearances interpreted accordingly.  Fashion critics suggest the effect is overstated and all else being equal, design and the quality of fabric is much more significant than the color, a well-cut garment in a light shade able to be more “slimming” that anything ill-fitting or of poor design in black.  They note the effect anyway can to some extent be achieved with other solid, dark colors (Prussian blue, charcoal, deep olive etc) because again, the uninterrupted expanse reduces visual segmentation.  Perceptions are also sometime gleaned from professional photography with angles and lighting optimized whereas IRL (in real life) there’s movement so expectations must be tempered down to the art of the possible.

Official portrait of the Supreme Leader, issued by the KCNA at 7th Congress of the the WPK, 6-9 May 2016, April 25 House of Culture, Pyongyang.

Announced by the KCNA on state television as The Great Successor, The Supreme Leader was appointed General Secretary of the WPK, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and President of the State Affairs Commission, followed soon afterwards by a promotion to the army’s highest military rank, Marshal of the Korean People's Army, adding to his position as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces (exactly the same constitutional arrangement adopted by Hitler as commander-in-chief of both OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres (High Command of the Army)) and OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces)).  Great minds do think alike.  Confusingly, having already morphed from The Brilliant Comrade to The Great Successor to The Supreme Leader, references also appeared calling him The Dear Respected Leader but thankfully the proliferation seems now to have stopped and for more than a decades it's been "The Supreme Leader" all the way.  In office, he has pursued 병진 (byungjin (literally "parallel development")), a refinement of The Great Leader’s policy simultaneously to develop both the economy and the military, his particular emphasis in the latter a focus on nuclear weapons and inter-continental delivery systems.  It may be an attempt to avoid the problems inherent in the “Waffen und Butter” (guns and butter) programme pursued seriously by the Nazi regime (1933-1945) only by as late as 1938, the latter element loosing resource allocation after 1943 as fortunes turned in World War II (1939-1945).

Kim Jong-Un, looking through binoculars across the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), observing the “provocative maneuvers” of the South Korean Army.

While Kim III is no longer referred to as The Great Successor, there have been great successes.  Despite Western propaganda, there are elections in the DPRK and when The Supreme Leader sought a seat in the Supreme People's Assembly, there was a record turnout of voters and he received 100% of the votes cast.  Although it’s hard to determine the veracity of many of the reports, it’s suggested also he’s an innovator in matters of military discipline, new methods used by firing squads said to include flame throwers, and anti-aircraft cannons, both said to make quite a mess although it's difficult to know how high is the body count, some reported executed later turning up alive and well.  Worth a mention though is the assassination in 2017 of his exiled half-brother Kim Jong-Nam (1971-2017), killed with the nerve agent VX while walking through Kuala Lumpur International Airport, a novel twist on the extra-judicial execution being the use of two aspiring starlets to deliver the toxin; they believed they were being filmed as part of a reality TV show (as assassinations go, genuinely that was innovative and yet another first for the Kims). Most celebrated has been the nuclear programme and the increasingly bigger and longer-range missiles paraded from time to time.  Underground nuclear tests being hard to monitor, it remains unclear whether some of the devices tested are the long de rigueur plutonium weapons or, for the first time since the one-off A-Bomb used in Hiroshima in 1945, made using uranium.  Most impressively, the KCNA reported an almost complete success in the DPRK for some time avoiding outbreaks of COVID-19 with no cases reported in the republic so, on any basis of calculation, The Supreme Leader supervised the most successful COVID-19 strategy on Earth.  Unfortunately, because of neglect by lazy and incompetent officials (who were executed with the next two generations of their families consigned to labor camps) an outbreak did happen and the DPRK's borders remain almost wholly closed, only small number of carefully vetted tourists from Russia and the PRC (People's Republic of China) permitted entry for carefully supervised visits.   

The Supreme Leader has also at times drawn the interest of the pro ana community because of his weight loss has at times been striking and achieved before the general availability of GLP-1s (glucagon-like peptide-1).  Whether his motivation was (1) concerns about his health, being a bit chubby, (2) a wish to look more sexy and attractive to younger women or (3) display solidarity with his subjects, many of whom were suffering food shortages, his weight-loss regimes have on occasions been an obvious success, experts estimating (on the basis of photographic evidence), as much as 25-30 kg (65-80 lb) may have be shed.  That was commendable but did elsewhere create a problem for the small number of people in the entertainment business working as as Kim Jong-il impersonators, some of whom sought guidance from the pro ana community.  For security reasons, the regime employs "Supreme Leader body doubles" (doppelgangers) and it's not known if, during his "slim phases" they're starved until the meet the required dimensions or simply shot and replaced with thinner models.  Conspiracy theorists in the West did speculate the "slimmed down version" may really be a body-double who was paraded for the cameras just to assure hungry citizens the Supreme Leader was sharing (at least to some extent) their deprivations.  The KCNA does have "a bit of previous" in being "economical with the truth" so who knows?  However, regardless of his weight, The Supreme Leader seems in such rude good health that, still barely 40, he may well rule the DPRK even longer than his grandfather’s 45 years.  Ever since the demise of the USSR in 1991, analysts have been predicting the imminent demise of the communist regimes in both Pyongyang and Havana but they seem to muddle through, the DPRK of late enjoying new sources of foreign exchange, branching out from industrial-scale drug production and the smuggling of oil and minerals to the new field of cybercrime; even in the niche market of fake news they're said to run a small operation.

Doppelgangish.

US actor Elizabeth Gillies (b 1993) appeared as Fallon Carrington in the television drama Dynasty (2017–2022), a revival of the 1980s soap opera; it was shown in the US on the CW Television Network (episodes streamed internationally on Netflix the next day).  She appeared (far left) in Ariana Grande's (b 1993) music video Thank U, Next (2019), taking the part of Lindsay Lohan in the segment which was a homage to Mean Girls (2004).  While not technically a doppelganger, the degree of resemblance was sufficient for the theme to work.  The concept of Ms Grande's Thank U, Next could be applied to the DPRK's succession model ("just one Kim after another" as it were).

An artist’s depiction of how a statute in bronze of Daniel Andrews might be cast.

News the ALP (“Australian Labor Party” although more cynical souls prefer “Agitprop, Lies & Propaganda”) government in the Australian state of Victoria was allocating some Aus$134,000 (US$95,000) to erect a bronze statue of Daniel Andrews (b 1972; Premier of Victoria 2014-2023) was greeted by most taxpayers with a resigned indifference although at least some presumably would have preferred attention be devoted to violent crime, crumbling transport infrastructure and the troubled health system.  However, from the usual suspects in the commentariat came the predictable critique that given Victoria’s debt level and other acknowledged "issues", this might not be the most propitious moment to announce so much (borrowed) money was being spent for the aggrandizement of the politician under whom so much debt was accumulated and billions apparently squandered.  Unimpressed by such carping, Premier Jacinta Allan (b 1973; Premier of Victoria since 2023) defended the move, calling Mr Andrews “a fantastic premier” and didn't bother to deny suggestions her government was so resigned to losing the next election the focus had shifted to looting the exchequer for funds to build monuments to themselves.  Nor did she refer to analysis concluding the last ALP administration (under John Cain (1931–2019; Premier of Victoria 1982-1990) & Joan Kirner (1938–2015; Premier of Victoria 1990-1992)) had left the state in an even worse financial position so maybe she really has stopped trying.  Politically, though, she must find the similarities striking: a woman handed the job because the situation is hopeless and all that remains is for her to go down with the sinking ship, most of the men having already taken to the (taxpayer-funded) lifeboats.  In feminist theory, the phenomenon is known as the "glass cliff", exemplified by the recent investiture of a woman as Archbishop of Canterbury; were it possible for the job still to be done, the Anglicans would have appointed the 106^th man rather than the first woman.  

A visiting tour group of Australians from Victoria bow before the three statues.  As the bronze of comrade Dan's statue weathers, it will appear in the same, darker hue as his illustrious companions.

However, the announcement from Melbourne was described as “long overdue” by Kim Jong-Un who in 2023 presided over the unveiling of a statue of Mr Andrews, erected on a plinth beside those of Kim Il-Sung & Kim Jong-Il.  The three statues, cast in bronze and 22 metres (72 feet) high, stand as the centre-piece of 만수대대기념비 (Mansudae Grand Monument), a complex in central Pyongyang at which have been erected over 200 other (appropriately smaller) statues of figures from the DPRK’s heroic past.  At the unveiling ceremony, 10,000 invited citizens were able to enjoy listening to an untypically brief oration by the Supreme Leader before two hours of extracts from speeches by Mr Andrews (in the original English, followed by a Korean translation) were broadcast over loudspeakers.  Topics covered by Mr Andrews included “modern techniques in debt management”, “fiscal discipline” and “locking citizens in tower blocks for their own good”.  At several points, the broadcast was for some minutes paused so citizens could applaud.  Unfortunately, the outdoor ceremony was conducted on what proved to be Pyongyang’s coldest day in 44 years and several dozen in the audience died after succumbing to hypothermia while there were at least hundreds of cases of frostbite but the KCNA reported interviewed survivors saying that was a small price to pay to be able to hear in his own voice the thoughts of the one they called “The Great Leader of Victoria”.  Closing the ceremony from his double-glazed, centrally-heated, booth, the Supreme Leader concluded things with words that were at once inspiring and modest: “For a thousand generations, the people the eternal nation of the DPRK will honor the memory of comrade Daniel Andrews and his untiring assaults on decadent bourgeois values such as freedom of assembly, privacy and free speech.  Comrade Dan was the great dictator that I aspire to become and deserves to stand on the plinth next to our Great Leader and Dear Leader.  If I can do to the DPRK what comrade Dan did to Victoria, perhaps one day a statue of me will be placed on the plinth.”

Porch

Porch (pronounced pawrch or pohrch)

(1) In architecture, an exterior appendage to a building, forming an approach to a doorway, now usually with a roof which may be separate or an extension of that of the main structure; if walls are included, a porch is said to be “vestibule-like”.

(2) An exterior roofed gallery, often partly enclosed; a veranda.

(3) As “the Porch”, the portico or stoa in the agora of ancient Athens, where the Stoic philosopher Zeno of Citium and his followers met.

(4) Applied loosely (often in commerce, especially the real estate business), similar structures such as porticos, balconies, decks, verandas and such.

(5) In aerospace engineering, the platform outside the external hatch of a spacecraft.

1250–1300: From the Middle English porche (covered entrance; roofed structure, usually open on the front and sides, before an entrance to a building), from the Old French porche (porch, vestibule), from the Latin porticus (covered gallery, covered walk between columns, arcade, portico, porch), from porta (city gate, gate; door, entrance), from the primitive Indo European root per- (to lead, pass over).  In the Old English the Latin form was borrowed as portic.  By the late fourteenth century, a porche was understood as a “covered walk or colonnade on the front or side of a building”; by the early 1830s it was used in the US for the structures described in the UK as verandas.  Porch and porchful are nouns, porchless, porchlike & porched are adjectives; the noun plural is porches.

Porch swingers.

Vice-Admiral William Raborn (1905-1990; Director of Central Intelligence, 1965-1966, left) and Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; POTUS 1963-1969, right), sitting on porch swing on the porch of LBJ's boyhood home near Stonewall, Texas, 1965.  Admiral Raborn was a gallant sailor with a fine record but wholly was unsuited handling the politics demanded in the role of heading the CIA and served as the nation's chief spy for little more than a year.  If LBJ appears happy, it's likely because recently he'd been elected POTUS in one of the largest landslides recorded and the troubles caused by the war in Vietnam have yet to consume his presidency.

Some variants of porch are obvious: A “back porch” is a porch at the back of a structure (typically a house) while a “front porch” is at the front; any building with a porch may be described as “porched” (used usually as a modifier).  In architecture there are also what might be called “side porches” but the term is not in general use.  A structure is “porchless” if designed or built without a porch while an “outporch” is a now archaic term meaning “an exterior porch”; it’s of minor interest to historians of architecture because it suggests there was a time free-standing structures also were thought of as porches.  A “porchful” is “the quantity of stuff said to “fill a porch”, those items typically being “porch chairs” or “porch swing” (a seat with armrests and a back, built usually for two, and suspended from the ceiling with hooked chains (or cables) enabling it to rock back & forth.  Collectively such items could be styled “porch furniture” although “patio furniture”, “deck furniture” & “outdoor furniture are now in more common use.  All these pieces might be illuminated by a “porch light” (also as “porch-light” & “porch lamp”, a wall or ceiling-mounted light, often fitted with a protective grill).  Once such accessories have been placed, that constitutes one’s “porchscape” and although tables are not uncommon on larger porches, the term “porch table” seems not to be a thing.

A house with “wrap-around porch”, part of which (left) has been converted to a “sunporch” by the addition of glass panes.

The term “porchway” did not (as the name might suggest) describe an “extended or elongated porch” but was simply a synonym of porch; use is now thought archaic.  A “snow porch” was an enclosed but un-heated structure which was a feature in arctic areas or other places with very cold climates.  Snow porches were accessible from within a dwelling and typically used as storage for firewood and such, the advantage compared with an outside shed being those within didn’t have to walk outside in the cold to fetch a load.  Unlike a “sunroom” (a windowed room optimized for receiving natural light), a “sunporch” was a conventional porch to which windows (sometimes able to be opened) had been added.  In nautical use, a “wetporch” (also called a “moon pool”) was a feature in the hull of a vessel used for lowering equipment into the sea below.  Although used in a number of sub-surface environments and underwater habitats, the structures are most associated with off-shore mining and oil extraction, frequently seen on marine drilling platforms.

117 South Hervey Street, Hope, Hempstead County, Arkansas.

This is the house in which Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) spent the first four years of his life.  In June 1997, it was opened to the public as President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site which was a little opportunistic, his actual birth happening at Hope's now-demolished Julia Chester Hospital, the site now occupied by a funeral home.  The house's porch would be called a “front porch” and although when young Mr Clinton doubtless spent much time “on the porch”, later in life he didn't always “stay on the porch”.

A variant style was the stoop (raised open platform before the entrance of a house, approached by steps and thus neither a veranda nor a porch) and elements of the concept can be seen even in the dwellings uncovered in archaeological digs of prehistoric settlements but stoops seem first to have been so named in the mid eighteenth century to describe the feature in wooden houses in North America (including Canada which shared many of the building styles of the north-eastern US).  Stoop was from the Dutch stoep (flight of steps, doorstep, threshold), from the Middle Dutch, from Proto-Germanic stap- (step).  The Dutch form evolved in South African English as stoep, first recorded in 1797 although oral use may pre-date this.  Stoep was an element of the slur “stoep-sitter” which described a “habitually idle person who spends all day lounging on his stoep”.  Despite being a South African coining, it seems not to have been directly exclusively towards the non-white population, unlike the equivalent form from the US: “porch monkey” (a lazy black person characterized as idling away the hours sitting on a porch).  A modern coining was “porch pirate” (a criminal who practices “porch piracy”, stealing from porches packages delivered by a courier).  Although not a new class of crime, instances have soared with the increasing popularity of on-line shopping and the pattern seems mostly to be opportunistic; porch pirates driving around high-income neighborhoods and stealing whatever cartons are observed, a risky approach in the age of ubiquitous domestic CCTV systems.  However, law enforcement agencies have revealed their analysis indicates some porch piracy may be facilitated by “inside information” with porch pirates “tipped off” (by those somewhere in the supply chain) about desirable or high-value deliveries.

What used to be Standard Christian church architecture.  A narthex is a particular type of porch, many churches having a narthex and one or more porches. 

In church architecture, although Christian churches often had one or more porches, a special case was the narthex, an enclosed passage at the west end of a basilica or church, usually at right angles to the nave and located between the main entrance and the nave.  Theologically (and historically, thus socially), the significance of the narthex in many early Christian and Byzantine basilicas & churches was as well as being a conventional “lobby area”, it was place penitents were required to remain.  Although the archaeological record suggests there may have been some early churches with annexes or even small separate structures located nearby which fulfilled the latter function, narthexes seem quickly to have been integrated.  That means that structurally and architecturally, a narthex was part of the building but theologically was not, its purpose being to permit those not entitled to admission as part of the congregation (mostly catechumens and penitents) nevertheless to hear the service and (hopefully) be encouraged to reform their ways and pursue communion.  For ceremonies other than services, the narthex was otherwise a functional space, the church’s baptismal font often mounted there and in some traditions (both Eastern & Western) worshipers would sometimes anoint themselves and their children with a daub of holy water before stepping foot in the nave; some branches of the Orthodox Church use the narthex for funeral ceremonies.  There were also architectural variations in the early churches which persisted in larger building and cathedrals, the narthex divided in two, (1) an esonarthex (inner narthex) between the west wall and the body of the church proper, separated from the nave and aisles by a wall, trellis or some other means and (2) an external closed space, the exonarthex (outer narthex), a court in front of the church façade with a perimeter defined by on all sides by colonnades.

In the Western Church, reforms removed the requirement to exclude from services those who were not full members of the congregation which of course meant the narthex technically was rendered redundant.  However, the shape churches had assumed with a narthex included had become part of Church tradition so architects continued to include the space, both as part of the nave structure and something semi-separated.  They attracted a number of names, borrowed mostly from secular buildings including vestibule, porch, foyer, hallway, antechamber, anteroom, entrance, entry, entryway, gateway, hall, lobby, portal & portico, the choice dictated sometimes by local tradition, sometimes by the nature of construction and sometimes the choice seems to have been arbitrary.  In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the esonarthex and exonarthex retained distinct liturgical functions, some rituals terminating in the exonarthex while services still exclusively penitential services are usually chanted in the esonarthex.  In dialectal northern English, the casual term for the penitents forced to remain in the narthex was “the narts”.

A example of a portico: 1500 San Ysidro Drive, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.  Lindsay Lohan livered here for a while during “troubled starlet” phase.

Because there are so many ways porchlike structures can be described, word nerds with a fondness for architecture do like to correct the linguistically sloppy.  In a diary note of 28 June, 1954, documenting an evening in the British Embassy in Washington DC, Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) doctor (Lord Moran (Charles Wilson, 1882-1977; president of the Royal College of Physicians 1941-1949, personal physician to Winston Churchill 1940-1965) recorded telling his patient: “I hope you did not get cold sitting on the balcony in the chill night air.”  “Portico, not balcony, Charles.” he was corrected with a “mischievous smile”.

Porte-cochère of the Jing An Shangri-La Hotel, Shanghai, PRC.  This porte-cochère features what may be the ultimate porch light.  Such lighting structures have been made possible by LED (light emitting diode) technology; before LED's such a thing would have been too maintenance-intensive because of the limited life of bulbs or tubes. 

If a portico sits above a space where vehicles draw up for passengers to alight it becomes a porte-cochère, something now most associated with hotels or the forecourts of commercial buildings.  If a walkway is of any length with a roof supported by rows of pillars, that is a colonnade.  The car is a Mercedes-Benz S-Class (W221, 2005-2013, specifically, a “facelift” version (2009-2013)).  A special version of the W221 (S 300 L) was produced for markets in the Far East which combined the LWB (long wheelbase) platform with the 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) V6; it was essentially a LWB version of the S 280 (which also, despite the name used the 3.0 V6) sold in many other markets.  The S300 L was produced for the hotel trade and other operators of limousines who didn't want either thirsty V8s or V12s or the less refined diesels.

Lindsay Lohan on a balcony.  Although in general use the terms for such structures are applied loosely, in architecture, a balcony is accessible structure extending from a building and without roof.  Even if a balcony party is covered by a small eave, it is still not a porch.

A portico is best described as an “architectural porch leading to the entrance of a building” so not exactly a “big porch” although most tend to be large scale.  A noted feature of the buildings of Antiquity, a portico is defined by having a roof structure atop a walkway and although many architecture guides insist this must be supported by supported or enclosed within walls, a roof protruding from a building with no such ground-based anchorage (a favourite trick of architects in the mid-twentieth century) can be thought a portico if there’s some sort of walkway beneath.  The essential feature is the provision of shelter from the elements.  Those seeking a bit of visual grandeur (not only the McMansion crew) sometimes will add a pediment (a triangular upper part) atop but architects caution this can look absurd or pretentious on smaller structures because the sense of proportion works best at scale.

The colloquial phrase “hard dog to keep on the porch” is a lament used (perhaps often resignedly) by women of their husband’s or boyfriend’s chronic infidelity, describing men who are unfaithful and generally “difficult to keep an eye on.”  Although long in idiomatic use in the Southern US, in 1999 it came to wider attention when used by crooked Hillary Clinton of her husband, serial philander Bill Clinton.  Crooked Hillary must have picked up the expression while living in Arkansas; she began her ascent of the political and financial ladder by marrying Bill Clinton and with every election of him there as attorney-general (1977-1979) or governor (1979-1981 & 1983-1992), voters received a free copy of crooked Hillary.  When he became POTUS, she remained part of the package as FLOTUS 1993-2001, the consensus among political scientists that “he’d never have made it without her and vice-versa”.  Wives often of course do sometimes leave husbands who refuse to “stay on the porch” but crooked Hillary stayed and that was a defensible decision because, like many transactional relationships, the choice of “stay or go” is a thing of cost-benefit analysis; in a marriage, like most of life, for everything you do there’s a price to be paid.  

Problem-solver crooked Hillary finds a solution.

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; FLOTUS 1993-2001, far left), Chelsea Clinton (b 1980; FDOTUS 1993-2001, centre left), Bill Clinton, centre right) and Buddy (1997-2002; FD²OTUS 1997-2001, far right), strolling over the White House lawn, prior to a two-week vacation at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, 18 August 1998.  Unfortunately, crooked Hillary's expectation she'd found a companion loyal enough to “stay on the porch” wasn't realized, Buddy killed in a road accident outside the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, New York after running off to chase a car (though the vehicle wasn't one of the rare Monica 560s).  Whether to this day crooked Hillary blames her husband for “giving Buddy ideas” isn't known but certainly, he set the dog a bad example. 

What Can I Say (1983), original vinyl pressing by Gail Davies.  Record store staff weren’t always fastidious when applying the adhesive promotional stickers.

South of the Mason-Dixon Line, the expression must also have had some currency in the form “hard dog to keep under the porch” which indicates, at least in some cases or places, the particular significance of the architectural space was the roof rather than the floor.  The C&W (Country & Western) song You're a Hard Dog (To Keep Under the Porch) was co-written by Susanna Clark (1939–2012) and the extraordinarily prolific (credited with over 4000 C&W songs) Harlan Howard (1927-2002); it was first recorded by Gail Davies (b 1948) and released on What Can I Say (1983), her fifth studio album (a question mark not used in the album’s title).

Porch joke

An unemployed man went door-to-door, seeking jobs.  Impressed by the work-ethic, after agreeing an hourly rate, one resident handed him a brush and two large cans of green paint, telling him: “You can go and paint the porch out back.”  Three hours later the man returned and said: “I done finished the painting mister and I done a good job but I swear to you sir, that ain’t no Porsh, it be a Ferrari.”  In the original German, Porsche is pronounced with two syllables (Paw-shuh), not the sometimes heard, single syllable Porsh.  In German, the final “e” is pronounced as a short uh.

Some paint required: 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial, as sold (top left) and on-track in period (top right) and 1972 Dino 246 GT, fire damaged (bottom left) and a 1972 246 GT in Medium Green Metallizzato over Nero leather (bottom right).  It's believed the factory finished only 21 of the 2,295 246 GTs coupés or 1,274 246 GTS spyders (targas) in Medium Green Metallizzato but another shade of green, Verde Medio Nijinsky, was rarer still, only three of those leaving the line.  The Dino was advertised for sale at US$129,500 and was sold although the price paid was not disclosed.  The wrecked 500 Mondial (the second one built and one of 13 examples with Pininfarina spider coachwork) at auction in August 2023 realized US$1.875 million.  It has yet to resurface, restored or otherwise.

A classic Queenslander with the porches the locals tend to call verandas.  Many Queenslanders were built on stilts: (1) to encourage natural cooling, (2) as a form of flood mitigation, (3) to facilitate easier pest and termite control and (4) to make hilly sites adaptable to house construction.

The term “vernacular architecture” entered the jargon of the profession in 1964 after being coined by Austrian-born US architect Bernard Rudofsky (1905–1988).  It describes indigenous designs or methods of construction that evolved organically to suit local climates, available construction materials, social traditions and specific human needs.  In Queensland, Australia, the signature “vernacular architecture” was and remains the “Queenslander” although they’re less common than in their heyday.  In its classic form, a Queenslander can be imagined as a “house with a wrap-around porch” although the local term has long been “veranda”.  At scale, the style seems to have emerged in the 1840s as the optimal way, for a given footprint, to maximize air-flow and reduce internal temperatures, things of consequence in the sub-tropics and, in the age before electricity (let alone air-conditioning) much appreciated by British & European migrants from more temperate, less humid regions.  Much of Queensland also was subject to hard rain and the verandas provided expansive living, eating and even sleeping spaces which could be used rain, hail or shine.  Snow and ice rarely was an issue.

The Erechtheion and the Caryatid Porch

The Erechtheion on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece.

One of the world’s most famous porches is the most striking feature of the Erechtheion (from the Ancient Greek Ἐρέχθειον (Erékhtheion)), an Ancient Greek Ionic temple-telesterion on the north side of the Acropolis, dedicated to the goddess Athena.  Built late in the fifth century BC, the Erechtheion was one of the first major projects following the devastation of the Greco-Persian Wars, the re-building of the Acropolis thus vested with all the symbolic ambition of a “civilization reborn”.  Given that, while the mathematically precise lines of the Parthenon impart a projection of order, rationality, and imperial confidence, the Erechtheion seems architecturally anarchic but it too was a piece of messaging, preserving ancient, sacred traditions within the new Classical architectural.  Unlike so many of the neat, consistent, often symmetrical structures which have survived from Antiquity, the Erechtheion is an architectural outlier because the design needed simultaneously to solve several political, religious and topographical problems.  Even today, it would be a challenge on the site to fulfil the demands while achieving the symmetrical perfection normally associated with Classical Greek temples.  For those reasons, anyone undertaking a tour of Roman and Greek ruins would, on first sight, find the Erechtheion startling, the look fragmented and seemingly so improvised many might assume additions have over the years been “tacked-on”.  The irregularity was deliberate, the location not being dedicated to a single deity; as well as honoring King Erechtheus, the architects were compelled to incorporate several ancient cult sites and sacred objects associated with Athena, Poseidon, and a grab-bag of local heroes and ancestral cults.

From the right angle, on the right day the Erechtheion can make a memorable photograph.

Mostly though, despite the name, the myth most celebrated was the legend of the site being the place where Athena and Poseidon competed for patronage of Athens, dedicated cultists holding the soil contained physical remnants of the epic contest including a sacred salt-water spring, Poseidon’s trident mark etched in the rock and Athena’s olive tree.  Because these relics of the past were in architecturally inconvenient places, the structure of the Erechtheion had to be “built around them”, thus precluding the simple rectangular floor plan and associated motifs which are such a marker of the temples from Antiquity.  The topography was also significant, the Acropolis rock beneath sloping sharply, meaning the surface was uneven.  As a piece of civil engineering this could of course have been levelled (if one had enough time and slaves, mountains could be moved) but that would have disturbed the relics so the work proceeded on what was a most irregular surface.  That made construction more of a challenge but did result in one of Antiquity’s most striking temples, the east and west sides at different heights, the interior chambers located on floors and varied levels and porches are placed asymmetrically, one consequence being it emerging as a complex of interconnected sanctuaries rather than the more familiar, single unified hall.

Within are several shrines, the eastern section dedicated to Athena Polias (Athena of the City), while the western portions were associated with Poseidon-Erechtheus and hero cults (best thought of as “best supporting actors” in Academy Award (Oscar) terms) meaning the entrances and their associated porches and portici served different ritual functions.  Although the layout and form were dictated by circumstances, in many ways, what was done proved a harbinger for much of public architecture in the centuries to come as the shape of “multi-function” buildings began increasingly to include physical segregation between spaces in both the horizontal and vertical with separate provisions for ingress and egress.  So while not “geometrically pure” in the Greek way, there’s an organic charm to the Erechtheion although Athenian citizens upon a first sight must have thought it peculiar or even weird architecture; the “shock of the new” is not unique to modernity.

The Caryatid Porch, the Porch of the Maidens.

The structure’s most famous and oft-photographed feature is the south porch, supported by a half dozen sculpted female figures: the Caryatids.  Caryatids was from the Middle French cariatide, from the Latin caryatides, from the Ancient Greek Καρυάτιδες (Karuátides), the noun plural of Καρυᾶτις (Karuâtis) (a priestess of Artemis, female figures used as bearing-shafts), from καρυατίζω (karuatízō) (dance the Karyatid festival dance) from Καρύαι (Karúai) (a town in Laconia with a temple of Artemis and the site of festivals in her honor).  The orthodox etymology is disputed by some scholars but the literal translation of karyatides is “maidens of Karyai” (an ancient Peloponnese settlement) and the young ladies from there were legendarily beautiful & healthy (and thus ideal “breeding stock”, good genes then as sought in mothers as they were in livestock).  In the language of architecture, caryatids were sculpted female figures used as supports in the manner of a column or pillar.  By necessity of physics, most caryatids supported the entablature (all of that part of a classical temple above the capitals of the columns; includes the architrave, frieze, and cornice but not the roof) on the head rather than the raised arms often seen in free-standing statutes, this done for reasons of structural integrity rather than aesthetics although it was a nod also to the notion of the girls of Karyai often being depicted as a canephora (basket-bearer), carrying to feasts of the goddesses Athena and Artemis fruits, nuts or sacred objects in woven cane baskets they placed on their heads.

The Parthenon on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece.

The Parthenon is the classic example of the Greek temple and more representative of the type than the Erechtheion.  It was proto-second wave feminist comrade Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 1949-1976) who reminded Chinese men “Women hold up half the sky” although he made the famous remark in 1968 at the height of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) which makes for an amusing historical juxtaposition.  Still, it does suggest that even if contemporary Athenians might have thought the Erechtheion a bit weird, the sight of a half-dozen young ladies holding up a roof built by a culture which was patriarchal (as was then the way) would have pleased the comrade Chairman who’d have felt assured the architects were good Maoists, the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) first constitution (1954) implying gender equality in Article 85 (Citizens of the People's Republic of China are equal before the law) and made explicit in Article 86 (Citizens of the People's Republic of China are equal before the law) & Article 96 (Women in the People's Republic of China enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of political, economic, cultural, social and domestic life).  Reading the PRC’s 1954 constitution, it clear the place was as much as a paradise for citizens as the Soviet Union must have been based on comrade Stalin’s (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) 1936 constitution although in Article 86 of the PRC’s document it was mentioned rights could be denied to those the state declared “insane”, a clause which proved handy over the years, as did a similar provision in the USSR.

The Parthenon, Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee.

Designed by architect William Crawford Smith (1837–1899), the Parthenon which stands in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee, was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.  A full-scale reproduction of the original, it's now an art museum and in the Treasury Room are displayed plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles, cast from the original sculptures.  In the nineteenth century, Nashville was one of a number of cities around the world often styled "the Athens of the South" and this doubtless had some influence on the choice of the building as the exposition's centrepiece but while some of the other structures erected for the event were in the style of buildings from antiquity, the Parthenon was the only one to use exact dimensions.  The 1897 structure was intended to last only for the duration of the exposition and was thus built with plaster, wood & brick but such was the local support for its retention it was left standing, soon beginning to deteriorate.  By 1920 however it was a noted tourist attraction and had become accepted as a feature of the city so, on the same foundations, it was rebuilt in concrete, the project completed in 1931.  Concrete however doesn't possess the same qualities of durability as granite and marble so for the replica to maintain its appearance and structural integrity, progressive replacements of components will be required, engineers noting the essentially modular nature of the construction means it may never need wholly to be re-built.  If it endures long enough, it may end up as something of a Ship of Theseus.

The new headquarters of the state media’s China Daily during construction.  When finished if looked less confronting but one can see why the President Xi knew there had to be a good, hard crackdown on “weird architecture” being erected.

Much in the PRC has of course changed since comrade Chairman Mao’s time although gender equality remains constitutionally entrenched and that no women ever have made it to the Politburo’s ruling Central Committee may simply reflect them not trying hard enough, after all, during all those decades the One-Child Policy (1980-2016) was in effect, it’s not as if they could complain about the demands on their time made by raising a large family.  Still, the spirit of “Women hold up half the sky” must remain current thought in Beijing but whether President Xi Jinping (b 1953; General Secretary of the CCP & paramount leader of the PRC since 2012) would have approved of either the maidens of the Caryatid Porch "holding up all the roof" or the Erechtheion’s many other architectural idiosyncrasies may be doubtful.  As early as 2014, not best pleased by the stylistic exuberance seen in China's recent skyscrapers, Mr Xi called for an end to what he called “weird architecture”, telling planners buildings should be “suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye” rather than “oversized, xenocentric & weird”.  It might be concluded that while he’d have admired the elegant simplicity of the lines of the Parthenon, Mr Xi would have used of the Erechtheion the same critique he may (in words echoing an earlier critic of aesthetics) have levelled at what he was seeing on the Beijing skyline: “muddle, chaotic, dissonant, confused and intentionally ugly”.  China’s architects he may have accused of building stuff that was “weird” but, well-skilled at reading between the CCP's lines, they’d have understood they’d just been labeled “formalists”.  Carefully, they took note.

Now replicas but, thousands of years on, still doing the job.

Although at the time the caryatids were a highly unconventional addition to a major temple, as an architectural motif, they were not unique as replacements for columns or pillars, the later male versions being the telamon or atlas; unlike the caryatids, the male analogues sometimes were carved on a vast scale.  Nor was the structural technique only anthropomorphic, roofs sometimes supported by renderings in the shape of swords, serpents, fish or other wildlife although what some Instagrammers may not realize is the figures today dutifully holding up the roof of the Erechtheion’s Caryatid Porch are immaculately rendered reproductions, the originals safely preserved as displays in the Acropolis Museum except for one which sits in the British Museum.  That one was “obtained” by Lord Elgin (1766–1841) during his expeditions to Greece between 1800-1803 when he “purchased” (disputed by the government of Greece which suggests something like “plundered”) what came to be known as the “Elgin Marbles”.