Saturday, 30 August 2008

A Glossary of Terms used in Classical Architecture

Abacus:  The flat slab on the top of a capital.
Acroteria:  Statues or ornaments placed at the apex and the ends of pediments.
Adytum:  1. The inner sanctuary of a Greek temple, where oracles were delivered. 2. Any private sanctuary.
Arch:  The spanning of an opening other than that of a lintel .
Architrave:  The lintel extending from one column or pier to another.
Buttress:  A mass of masonry or brickwork projecting from or built against a wall to give more strength.
Capital:  The head or crowning feature of a column.
Colonnade:  A row of columns carrying an entablature or arches.
Column:  A free-standing, upright member of a circular section, usually for a support.
Dentil:  A small square shape often repeated in a horizontal line.
Dome:  A vault of even curvature on a circular base which can be segmental, semicircular, pointed, or bulbous.
Doric Order:  The earliest of the Greek orders also adapted by the Romans.
Dormer window:  A window placed vertically in a sloping roof and with a roof of its own.
Drum:  A vertical wall supporting a dome; it may be circular, square, or polygonal.
Eaves:  The underpart of an overhanging cornice or sloping roof.
Engaged column:  A column attached to, or partly sunk into, a wall or pier 
Eye:  The center of a volute.
Facade:  The front of face or a building, emphasized architecturally.
Finial:  A formal ornament at the top of a canopy, or pinnacle.
Fluting:  Shallow, concave grooves running vertically on the shaft of a column, pilaster, or other surface.
Frieze:  The middle division of an entablature, between the architrave and the cornice, usually decorated but may be plain button right.
Gable:  The triangular upper portion of a wall at the end of a pitched roof corresponding to a pediment in classical architecture.
Hypostyle:  A hall or other large space over which the roof is supported by rows of columns like a forest.
Ionic Order:  An order that originated in Asia Minor in the mid-sixth century B.C. 
Jamb:  The vertical face of an archway, doorway, or window.
Keystone:  The central stone of a true arch of rib vault.
Lantern:  A small circular or polygonal turret with windows all round, crowning a roof or a dome.
Lineaments: General term for the mouldings and other sculpted decorations of any architectural work.
Lintel:  a horizontal beam or stone bridging an opening.
Metope:  The square space between two triglyphs in the frieze of a Doric order; it may be carved or be left plain.
Mouldings:  Decorative segments of carved and painted ornament: EGG and DART, BEAD and REEL, DENTIL, LILY & PALMETTA, OVOLO, LESBIAN, CYMA RECTA and CYMA REVERSA.
Niche:  A vertical recess in a wall or pier, usually arched and containing a statue or urn 
Obelisk   A tall, tapering shaft of stone, usually monolithic, of square or rectangle section and ending pyramidally.
Oculus:  A circular opening in a wall or at the apex of a dome.
Parapet:  A low wall placed to protect any spot where there is a sudden drop.
Pediment:  In classical architecture, a low-pitched, triangular gable above a portico. A pediment can also be a similar feature above doors and pictures.
Pendentive:  A concave spandrel leading from the angle of two walls to the base of a circular dome; the structural means of support for a circular dome to rest on a square dome, a common Byzantine architecture.
Pier:  A solid masonry support, as distinct from a column; the solid mass between doors, windows, and other openings in buildings.
Portal:  A door or entrance.
Portico:  A roofed space, open or partly enclosed, forming the entrance of the facade of a temple, house, or church, often with detached or attached columns and a pediment.
Posts:  The main verticals of walls or doorways that support a lintel.
Pylon:  In ancient Egyptian architecture, the rectangular, truncated, pyramidal towers flanking the gateway of the temple.
Pyramid:  In ancient Egyptian architecture, a sepulchral monument in the form of a huge stone structure with a square base and sloping sides meeting at an apex.
Quoin:  The stones at the corners of buildings, usually laid so that their faces are alternately large and small.
Rotunda:  A building or room circular in plan and usually domed.
Roundel:  A circular ornament, often decorated with sculptural reliefs or glazed terra-cotta.
Rustication:  Masonry cut in massive blocks, sometimes in a crude state to give a rich and bold texture to an exterior wall.
Shaft:  The trunk of a column between the base and the capital.
Spandrel:  The triangular space between the side of an arch, the horizontal above its apex, and the vertical of it's springing; the surface between two arches in an arcade.
Spire:  A tall, pyramidal, polygonal, or conical structure rising from a tower, turret, or roof (usually of a church) and terminating in a point.
Terra-cotta:  Fired but unglazed clay, used mainly for wall or roof covering and ornamentation.
Tracery:  The ornamental work in the upper part of a window, screen. or panel, or used decoratively in blank arches and vaults.
Triglyph:  A block separating metopes in a Doric frieze; each has two vertical grooves (or glyphs) in the center and half grooves at the edges.
Turret:  A very small, slender tower.
Tympanum:  The area between the lintel of a doorway and the arch above it.
Vault:  An arched ceiling or roof of stone, brick, or concrete.
Veranda:  An open gallery or balcony with a roof supported by light supports.
Volute:  A spiral scroll on an Ionic capital.
Voussoir:  A brick or wedge-shaped stone forming one of the units or an arch.

No comments: