Fascias, or fascia boards, are the front-facing vertical wooden panels or plastic sheets which are secured below the guttering of buildings, capping the eaves in the process. They can also double to hold the gutter in place. They are used in conjunction with soffits, which fit under the fascia horizontally to create the finished edge and protect the eaves.
We at Bliby Plastics supply a wide range of plastic fascias and soffits, but why are they needed, and why don’t period properties have them? Well in fact they do – or did. The word fascia originally came from Greek classical architecture, and referred to the plain band between the top of the columns and the entablature (the fancy bit running horizontally across the top of the columns). In Doric columns, a drip edge, or guttae (where the modern word gutter comes from) was mounted on the fascia. The soffit was part of the cornice, which itself was part of the entablature.
Modern architecture has simplified this. We no longer have capitols, triglyphs or taeniae – or if we do, it’s for decorative purposes only. However, the elements remain, albeit in combination and in a much reduced form, reflecting the no-nonsense architecture of the modern age. But while many elements of classical architecture were aesthetic in nature, it’s important to realise they fulfilled a useful purpose too – it helped them survive the centuries, for a start (or at least, collapse gracefully). In the same way, modern plastic fascias and soffits help preserve the life of buildings, though perhaps not in quite the same style as the Acropolis.
