Architecture
Terms
Ambulatory: A covered passageway for walking. In a church, the semicircular passage
around the main altar.
Apse (aap’ss): A large semicircular or polygonal niche, domed or vaulted. In a Roman
basilica the apse was placed at one or both ends or sides of the building. In a Christian
church it is usually placed at the east end of the nave beyond the choir.
Arcade: A covered walk made of arches on piers or columns, rather than lintels.
Arch: 1. Commonly, any curved structural member that is used to span an opening. 2.
Specifically, restricted to the spanning members of a curved opening that are constructed
of wedge-shaped stones called voussoirs. Arches may be of many shapes, basically
round or pointed.
Artistic Medium: The elements or material out of which works of art are made.
Balustrade: A rail or handrail along the top edge of a roof or balcony, made up of a top
horizontal rail, a bottom rail, and short columns between.
Baptistry: The building or room for performing the rite of baptism. Contains a basin or
pool.
Baroque: Term fist applied to the visual arts and later to the music and literature of the
17th and 18th centuries.
Base: 1. The lowest visible part of a building. 2. The slab on which some column shafts
rest.
Bay: One of a series of regularly repeated spaces of a building marked off by vertical
elements.
Beam: A large piece of squared timber, long in proportion to its bredth and thickness,
used for spanning spaces.
Boss: The circular keystone at the crossing of diagonal ribs. May be richly carved and
decorated.
Buttress: The vertical exterior mass of masonry built at right angles into the wall to
strengthen it and to counteract the lateral thrust of a vault or arch.
Capital: The uppermost or crowning member of a column, pilaster, or pier that forms the
visual transition from the post to the lintel above.
Cella: The principal chamber of a Greek or Roman temple, housing the cult image.
Centering: The temporary wooden structure that supports an arch or dome while it is
being erected.
Centered space: A site-natural or manmade-that organizes other places around it.
Chaitya: Buddhist term for the hall of worship.
Chapel: 1. A small church. 2. A separate compartment in a large church that has its own
altar.
Choir: The part of the church reserved for clergy and singers, usually the space between
the crossing as the apse. Music: A group of singers in a church.
Classic, Classical: All arts: Recognized generally to be excellent, time-tested.
Coffer, Coffering: Originally a casket or box, later, a recessed ceiling panel. Coffering is
a technique for making a ceiling of recessed panels.
Colonnade: A series of regularly spaced columns supporting a lintel or entablature.
Column: A cylindrical, upright post or pillar. It may contain three parts: base, shaft, and
capital.
Configurational center: A place of special value, a to dwell.
Content: All Arts: What the form contains and means. Content may include subject
matter and theme. The quality of a work of art is often judged by the appropriateness, or
apparent inseparability, of form and content.
Cornice: 1. The horizontal projection that finishes the top of a wall. 2. In classical
architecture, the third or uppermost horizontal section of and entablature.
Dome: A curved or hemispherical roof structure spanning a space and resting on a
curved, circular, or polygonal base. Theoretically, a dome is an arch rotated 360 degrees
around a central axis.
Drum: The cylindrical or polygonal structure that rises above the body of a building to
support a dome.
Earth-resting architecture: Buildings that accent neither the earth nor the sky, using the
earth as a platform with the sky as a background.
Earth-rooted architecture: Buildings that bring out with special force the earth and its
symbolisms.
Elevation: 1. Generally, a term that refers to one of the sides of a building.2.
Specifically, a drawing or graphic representation showing one face or side of a building.
It can be on the interior or exterior.
Facade (fa-sahd’): a face of a building.
Fluting: The grooves or channels, usually parallel, that decorate the shafts of columns.
Fluting may run up and down a shaft or around the shaft in various directions.
Form: All Arts: The arrangement or organization of elements of a work of art in space or
time. A form may be conventional or imposed by tradition (The Greek temple) or
original with the artist.
Gable: The triangular space at the end of a building formed by the slopes of a pitched
roof, extending from the cornice or eaves to the ridge. In classical architecture the gable
is call a pediment.
Gallery: Along, covered area, usually elevated, that acts as a passageway on the inside or
exterior of a building.
Ground Plan: A drawing of a horizontal section of a building that shows the arrangement
of the walls, windows, supports and other elements. A ground plan is used to produce
blueprints.
Image: All Arts: The representation of sense impressions to the imagination.
Jamb: A vertical member at either side of a door frame or window frame. When
sculpture is attached to this member it is called a jamb sculpture or jamb figure.
Keystone: The central wedge-shaped stone of an arch that locks together the others.
Lantern: The windowed turret or tower-like form that crowns a dome or roof.
Lintel: The horizontal member or beam that spans an opening between two upright
members, or posts, over a window, door, or similar opening.
Medium: The material or materials with which the artist works.
Molding: A member used in construction or decoration that produces a variety in edges
or contours by virtue of its curved surface.
Nave: In Roman architecture, the central space of a basilica; in Christian architecture, the
central longitudinal or circular space in the church, bounded by aisles.
Niche (nish): A semicircular or similarly shaped recess in a wall designed to contain
sculpture, and urn, or other object. It is usually covered by a halfdome.
Oculus (ock’you-luhs): Circular opening at the crown of a dome.
Orders: Types of columns with entablatures developed in classical Greece. The orders
are basically three: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. They determine not only the scale and
therefore dimensions of a temple but also the experience generated by the building, or its
style.
Pediment: In classical architecture the triangular space at the end of a roof formed by the
sloping ridges of the roof.
Pier: A column, post, or similar member designed to carry a great load; may also refer to
a thickened vertical mass within the wall designed to provide additional support.
Podium: the high platform or base of a Roman temple, or any elevated platform.
Post-and-Lintel: An essential system of building characterized by the use of uprights-posts--which support horizontal beams--lintels--in order to span spaces. Used as supports
for a window or door, the posts are the jambs and the lintel is the window head.
Rib: Generally a curved structural member that supports any curved shape or panel.
Ridge: The line defined by the meeting of the two sides of a sloping roof.
Section: The drawing that represent a vertical slide through the interior or exterior of a
building, showing the relation of floor to floor.
Shed Roof: a roof shape with only one sloping plane, such as the roof of a lean-to, or that
over the side aisle in a Gothic or Romanesque church.
Sky-oriented architecture: Buildings that bring out with special force the sky and its
symbolisms.
Stained Glass: Glass to which a color is added during its molten state, or glass which is
given a hue by firing or otherwise causing color to adhere to the glass.
Subject: What the work is about.
Thrust: The downward and outward pressure exerted by a vault or dome on the walls
supporting it.
Triumphal Arch: The monumental urban gateway, invented by the Romans, set up along
a major street to commemorate important military successes.
Vault: The covering or spanning of a space employing the principle of the arch and using
masonry, brick, plaster, or similar malleable materials. The extension of an arch
infinitely in one plane creates a barrel or tunnel vault.
Volume: Refers to the void or solid three dimensional quality of a space or form whether
completely enclosed or created by the presence of forms which act as boundaries.
Wall: A broad, substantial upright slab that acts as an enclosing form capable of
supporting its own weight and the weight of beams or arches to span and enclose space,
Ziggurat: The Mesopotamian temple-tower.