Architecture Glossary

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P

Palmette – A fan-shaped decorative motif resembling a palmated leaf or a panicle of flowers. Ancient types of palmette were revived during the Renaissance and extensively used thereafter, especially in the late c 18.

Panel – Strictly any flat surface sunk or raised within a framework, e.g. Gothic stone panelling, but more usually a framed wooden surface as used in panelling to cover a wall.

Pantheon dome – A dome similar to that of the Pantheon in Rome, though not necessarily open in the centre.

Pantile – A roofing tile of curved S-shaped section.

Paradise – An open court of atrium surrounded by porticos in front of a church. The garden or cemetery of a monastery, in particular the main cloister cemetery. Parvis seems to be a corruption of paradises.

Cloister of San Martino by Fanzago

Parapet – A low wall, sometimes battlemented, placed to protect any spot where there is a sudden drop, for example, at the edge of a bridge, quay, or house-top.

Parclose – A screen enclosing a chapel or shrine and separating it from the main body of the church so as to exclude non –worshippers.

Parekklesion – In Byzantine architecture, a chapel, either free-standing or attached.

Parekklesion Chora Church

Pargeting – Exterior plastering of a timber-framed building, usually modelled in design, e.g. vine pattern, foliage, figures.

Parpen, parpent, or parpend – A stone which passes through a wall with two smooth vertical faces. Also called a ‘through stone or bond stone’.

San Carlo Theatre - Naples

Versailles, South parterre - Le Notre

Parterre – In a garden, a level space, usually adjacent to the main house, laid out in low, formal beds of flowers as at the Grand Trianon, Versailles. In a theatre, that part of the auditorium on the ground floor lying behind the orchestra.

Parvis(e) – In France the term for the open space in front and around cathedrals and churches; probably a corruption of paradises. In England a term wrongly applied to a room over a church porch.

Pastophory – A room in a Early Christian or Byzantine church serving as a Diaconicon or Prothesis; as a rule flanking the apse of the church.

Patera – A small, flat, circular or oval ornament in classical architecture, often decorated with Acanthus leaves or rose petals.

Patio – In Spanish architecture, an inner courtyard open to the sky.

Pavillion – An ornamental building, lightly constructed, often used as a pleasure-house or summerhouse in a garden, or attached to a cricket or other sports ground; also a projecting subdivision of some larger building, usually square and often domed, forming an angle feature on the main façade or terminating the wings.

Pedestal – In classical architecture, the base supporting a column or colonnade; also, more loosely, the base for a statue or any superstructure.

Pediment – Not a Greek or Roman term but signifying in classical architecture a low-pitched gable above a portico, formed by running the top member of the entablature along the sides of the gable; also a similar feature above doors, windows, etc. It may be straight-sides or curved segmentally.

Pendant – A boss elongated so that it hangs down; found in Late Gothic vaulting and, decoratively, in French and English c 16 and early c 17 vaults and also stucco ceilings.

Pendentive – A concave spandrel leading from the angle of two walls to the base of a circular dome. It is one of the means by which a circular dome is supported over a square or polygonal compartment and is used in Byzantine and occasionally Romanesque architecture, and often in Renaissance, Baroque, and later architecture.

Penthouse – A subsidiary structure with a lean-to roof; also a separately roofed structure on the roof of a high block of flats.

Pergola – A covered walk in a garden usually formed by a double row of posts or pillars with beams above and covered with climbing plants.

Peribolos – In ancient Greek architecture wall or colonnade surrounding a temple or sacred enclosure, hence sometimes applied to the enclosure itself.

Temple of Poseidon, Isthmia

Peripteral – Of a building, surrounded by a single row of columns.

Parthenon

Peristyle – A range of columns surrounding a building or open court.

John William Waterhouse - In the Peristyle

Architecture Glossary

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