Architecture Glossary

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C

Cable moulding – A Romanesque moulding imitating a twisted cord.

Caldarium – The hot-room in a Roman bath.

Camber – Of a horizontal timber, usually a tie-beam or a collar-beam, in which the centre is higher than the ends.

Campanile - A bell tower or any tower containing a bell, generally attached to a church.

Canephora – A sculptured female figure carrying a basket on her head.

Canopy – A hood suspended or projected over a door, window, tomb, altar, pulpit, niche, etc.

Sant' Apolinare in Classe Ravenna Italy (5th C.)

Capital – The head or crowning feature of a column.

Caprice - A caprice is a design element that is whimsical, light, and fanciful.

Caracol or caracole – A spiral staircase.

Carrel or carol – A niche in a cloister where a monk might sit and work or read; sometimes applied to bay windows.

Cartouche – An ornamental panel in the form of a scroll or sheet of paper with curling edges, usually bearing an inscription and sometimes ornately framed.

Caryatid – A sculptured female figure used as a column to support an entablature or other similar member, as on the Erechtheum.

Casino – An ornamental pavilion or small house, usually in the grounds of a larger house.

Phra Kaew pavilion

Catenary – The curve formed by a chain or rope uniformly loaded along its length and freely suspended from two points horizontally separated. In mathematics, the catenary is the shape of a hanging flexible chain or cable when supported at its ends and acted upon by a uniform gravitational force (its own weight).

Caul and caulcole – The main stalk of a leaf on a Corinthian capital from which grow the lesser stalks or caulcoles  (latin cauliculi) supporting the volutes.

Castellation - Any decoration on a building to make it look like a castle, usually a notched or indented parapet originally for protection so inhabitants could shoot through the openings in combat. See also crenellation and battlement.

Ceiling - The top interior finish of a room which hides the structure and support of the roof. Ceilings can be painted, stuccoed, carved, or covered with tin plate, gold, or sculpture.

Chiericati palace - Vicenza

Cell – One of compartments of a groin or rib vault, in the Romanesque period usually of plastered rubble, in the Gothic period of neatly coursed stones.

Cella – The main body of a classical temple, containing the cult image, as distinct from the portico, etc. In early Christian and Byzantine architecture, the cella is an area at the centre of the church reserved for performing the liturgy. In later periods a small chapel or monk's cell was also called cella.

Cellar – A room below or partly below ground for storage, as distinct from a basement, which is a living-space.

Gothic cellar under the house of the Lords of Podebrady

Celure – The panelled and adorned part of a wagon roof above the rood or the altar.

Cenotaph – A monument to a person or persons buried elsewhere.

Greek revivalist cenotaph, Anzac Square. Brisbane, Australia

Centrally planned – Of a building which radiates from central point, as distinct from one on an Axial plan, e.g. an octagonal building as opposed to a Basilica.

Chancel – The part of the east end of a church in which the main altar is placed; reserved for clergy and choir.

East Liberty Presbyterian Church

Chequer-work – A method of decorating walls or pavements with alternating squares of contrasting materials to produce a chessboard effect.

Chevron – A Romanesque moulding forming a zigzag; so called from the French word for a pair of rafters giving this form.

Chimney - The stone, metal or masonry of a fireplace that extends up from the fireplace through the roof and carries the smoke outside.

Choir – The part of a church where divine service is sung, usually part of the chancel.

Westminster Abbey. The choir in 1848.

Choir screen - A screen, made of wood or stone, usually decorated with painting or sculpture, which separates the choir from the rest of the church.

Cincture - A fillet or ring of mouldings that separates either the base of a column from the shaft or the shaft of the column from the capital.

Cinqfoil - A five-lobed ornamental shape

Clerestory or clearstory – The upper stage of the main walls of a church above the aisle roofs, pierced by windows; in Romanesque architecture it often has a narrow wall-passage on the inside.

Clerestory St. Denis - Paris - France (1122)

Cloister – An enclosed space, usually a quadrangle or open court, surrounded by roofed or vaulted passages or ambulatories with an open arcade or colonnade on the interior side and a plain wall on the order; it connects the monastic church with the domestic part of the monastery.

Coffering – Decoration of a ceiling, a vault, or an arch soffit, consisting of sunken square or polygonal ornamental panels.

Coffer - San Lorenzo - Florence

Colonnade – A row of columns carrying an entablature or arches.

Composite pier - A type of pier that is composed not of a single member but has shafts, half-columns, or pilaster strips attached to it.

Conch – A semicircular niche surmounted by half-dome.

Confessional - A small, enclosed booth used for the Sacrament of Penance, often called confession, or Reconciliation.

Corbel or console – A projecting block, usually of stone, supporting a beam or other horizontal member. A series, each one projecting beyond the one below, can be used in constructing a vault or arch.

Cornice – In classical architecture, the top, projecting section of an entablature; also any projecting ornamental moulding along the top of a building, wall, arc, etc.

Cove or coving – A large concave moulding, especially that produced by the arched junction of wall and ceiling in a ‘cove ceiling’. In a rood screen the concave curve supporting the projecting rood loft is called the coving.

Crepidoma – The stepped base of a Greek temple.

Crest or cresting – An ornamental finish along the top of a screen, wall, or roof, usually decorated and sometimes perforated.

Crocket – A decorative hook-like spur of stone carved in various leaf shapes and projecting at regular intervals from the angles of spires, pinnacles, canopies, gables etc., in Gothic architecture. Also used in Gothic capitals in place of leaves and volutes.

Crossing – The space at the intersection of the nave, chancel, and transepts of a church; often surmounted by a crossing tower or dome.

Crossing pier - In the interior of a building, a support placed at one of the corners of the crossing.

Crossing tower - The tower which sometimes occurs above the space at the intersection of the nave, chancel, and transept of a church.

Crucks construction – A category of medieval architecture, of obscure origin, which culminated in such great roofs as those of Westminster Hall.

Crypt – In a church, a chamber or vault beneath the main floor, not necessarily underground, and usually containing graves or relics.

Cupola – A Dome especially a small dome on a circular or polygonal base crowning a roof or turret.

Curtain wall – In medieval architecture, the outer wall of a castle, surrounding it and usually punctured by towers or bastion.

Cusp – Projecting points formed at the meeting of the foils in Gothic Tracery, etc.

Cyma recta – A double-curved moulding, concave above and convex below; also called an ogee moulding.

Cyma reversa - A double-curved moulding, convex above and concave below; also called a reverse ogee moulding.

Architecture Glossary

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