Architecture Glossary
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Machicolation – A gallery or parapet projecting on brackets on the outside of castle towers and walls, which openings in the floor through which to drop molten lead, boiling oil, and missiles.
Mandorla – An almond-shaped motif in which Christ sits; sometimes used also for the Virgin.
Manor house – A house in the country or a village, the centre of a manor. Architecturally the term is used to denote the unfortified, medium-sized house of the later Middle Ages.
Mantelpiece – The wood, brick, stone or marble frame surrounding a fireplace, frequently including an over-mantel or mirror above; sometimes called chimney-piece.
Manueline style – An architectural style peculiar to Portugal and named after King Manuel the Fortunate (1495-1521).
Moisteiro dos Jeronimos, Portugal
Mascaron – A grotesque head viewed frontally. A decorative motif.
Mason’s mark – A symbol, monogram or initial incised in stonework by the mason responsible for the execution of the building, frequently found on Romanesque Romanesque and Gothic buildings.
Mastaba – Ancient Egyptian tomb, in form a massive brick or stone mound with battered walls on a rectangular base. The sarcophagal chamber was deep underground below.
Mausoleum – A magnificent and stately tomb. The term derives from the tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus c. 350 BC.
Mausoleum of Teodorico
Mycenaean Megaron
Megaron – A square or oblong room with a central hearth and usually four columns to support the roof, the lateral walls projecting forwards beyond the entrance wall to form the sides of a porch which is usually columned. Sometimes a second entrance wall, with a single opening like the first, is added to form an anteroom. It has been traditional in Greece since Mycenaean times and is sometimes thought to be the ancestor of the Doric temple.
Memorial brass - An engraved metal plate used as a commemorative monument. Sometimes these were set vertically, usually in a wall, but usually they were set horizontally, flush with the pavement of a church, to mark a tomb. The engraved areas were often filled with pigment.
Merlon – See Battlement.
Metope – The square space between two triglyphs in the frieze of a Doric order; it may carved or left plain.
Metope of Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs From south side of Parthenon
Mezzanine – A low storey between two higher ones; also called an entresol.
Milesian layout – A city plan of regular gridiron pattern with streets of uniform width and blocks of houses of approximately uniform dimension. It probably originated in the Hittite, Assyrian and Babilonian empires and developed in Ionia in the c 7 BC. It is named after the city of Miletus. This type of plan was advocated by Hippodamos, who is sometimes incorrectly said to have invented it.
Minster – Originally the name for any monastic establishment or its church, whether a monastery proper or a house of secular canons, it came to be applied to certain cathedral churches in England and abroad and also other minor churches.
Minute – In classical architecture a unit of measurement representing one sixtieth part of the diameter of a column at the base of its shaft. It may be either one sixtieth or one thirtieth part of a module.
Misericord or Miserere – Bracket on the underside of the seat of hinged choir stall which, when turned up, served as support for the occupant while standing during long services. The undersides were usually carved, often with figures.
Mithraeum – A building, often semi-subterranean, for celebrating the cult of Mithras, originally a Persian demigod whose worship challenged early Christianity. They are found in the Roman provinces, e.g. Dura Europos, but also in Rome itself, e.g. below S. Clemente.
Mythra Temple under St. Clemente
Modillion – A small bracket or console of which a series is frequently used to support the upper member of a Corinthian or Composite cornice, arranged in pairs with a square depression between each pair.
Module – A unit of measurement by which the proportion of a building or part of a building are regulated. In classical architecture, either the diameter or half the diameter of a column at the base of its shaft, in either case divided into minutes so that the full diameter represents 60 minutes. In modern architecture, any unit of measurement which facilitates prefabrication.
Modulor – The system of proportion advanced by Le Corbusier in his ‘Le Modulor’ (1951). It is based upon the male figure and is used to determine the proportion of building units.
Monolith – A single stone, usually in the form of a monument or column.
Monopteral – A term applied to a building with a single row of columns on all sides.
Monopteral circular temple
Mosaic Ravenna
Mosaic – Surface decoration for walls or floors formed of small pieces or tesserae of glass, stone, or marble set in a mastic. The design may be either geometrical or representational. Mosaic reached its highest pitch of accomplishment in Roman and Byzantine buildings.
Monreale Cathedral
Mullion – A vertical post or other upright dividing a window or other opening into two or more lights.
Muntin – The vertical part in the framing of a door, screen, panelling, etc., butting into, or stopped by, the horizontal rails.
Mutule – The projecting square block above the triglyph and under the corona of a Doric cornice
Architecture Glossary
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