A platform that projects from the wall of a building, and which is enclosed on its outer three sides by a balustrade, railing, or parapet.

Baluster

Bay

A section of a building distinguished by vertical elements such as columns or pillars. Often, a bay will protrude from the surface of the wall in which it is situated, thus creating a small, nook-like interior space, often of a rectangular or semi-hexagonal outline. See bay window.

Bay Window

A projecting bay that is lit on all of its projecting sides by windows. See bay.

Board-and-batten

Bow Window

Bell Roof

A roof shaped like a bell, and typically situated on top of a round tower. The bell roof has origins in Normandy, toured extensively by Stanford White, who incorporated bell roofs into many of his Shingle Style houses and buildings.

Belvedere

A small, square cupola that functions as a lookout tower, located at the top of a building. Belvederes are characteristic of Italianate houses.

Bousillage

Brace

A reinforcing and/or stabilizing element of an architectural frame.

Bracket

A projection from a vertical surface that provides structural and/or visual support for overhanging elements such as cornices, balconies, and eaves.

Casement Window

A window frame that is hinged on one vertical side, and which swings open to either the inside or the outside of the building. Casement windows often occur in pairs.

Central Hallway

A passageway that cuts through the center of a building, from front to back, and off of which rooms open to the sides.

Chalet

A timber dwelling, cottage, or lodge with a gable roof and wide eaves, indigenous to the Swiss Alps, but now found worldwide.

Chevron

Chimney Stacks and Bundles

Chimney flues visible from the exterior of a house, and sometimes very decorative.

Classical Architecture

Architecture modeled after the buildings of ancient Greece and Rome.

Classical Figurative Statuary

Colonial Kitchen

In the late 19^th- and early 20^th-centuries, a kitchen inspired by the kitchens of Colonial America. A colonial kitchen is usually large, with a wide, open hearth, and contains no modern conveniences (or else contains modern conveniences contrived to look pre-modern). Colonial revivalists of the late 19^th- and early 20^th-centuries looked back upon colonial dwellings, especially colonial kitchens, with nostalgia for earlier, pre-industrial times. The colonial kitchen display of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was exceedingly popular amongst Colonial Revival enthusiasts.

Colonnade

Column

Composite Order

Cone-shaped Roof

Corinthian Order

Cornice

A crowning projection at a roof line, often with molding or other classical detail.

Cornice Molding

A decorative strip of wood running just below the eaves of a building. A cornice molding is a cross between a cornice and a molding – a cornice is a crowning projection at a roof line, while a molding is a decorative strip of wood.

Courtyard

An open space, usually open to the sky, enclosed by a building, often with an arcade or colonnade.

Crenellation

A sequence of alternating raised and lowered wall sections at the top of a high exterior wall or parapet. Crenellations were originally employed for defensive purposes (one could hide behind a raised wall section, while shooting down at enemies from over a lowered wall section), but were later used for decoration. Also known as a battlement.

Cupola

Curlicue

Decorative Motif

A repeated pattern, image, idea, or theme. In classical architecture, series of urns and continuous or repeated swags of garlands are common decorative motifs.

Dentils

Small rectangular blocks that, when placed together in a row abutting a molding, suggest a row of teeth.

Diamond-paned Windows

Doric Order

The oldest (dating to the 6^th-century B.C.E.) and plainest of the three basic orders of classical Greek architecture (the others being the Ionic and the Corinthian orders). In ancient Greece, the Doric order was the masculine, and the most preferred, order. A Doric column is stout, with a fluted shaft (ideally, with 20 flutes), a plain capital, and no base. In ancient Rome, the Doric order was often replaced with the “Tuscan” order indigenous to the Italian peninsula; it consisted of an unfluted shaft, a simply molded capital, and a base.

Dormer Window

A perpendicular window located in a sloping roof; triangular walls join the window to the roof. Dormer windows are sometimes crowned with pediments, and they often light attic sleeping rooms; “dormer” derives from “dormir,” French for “to sleep.”

Double Doors

Double-hung Sash Windows

A window with two sashes that move independently of each other.

Eaves

Eclecticism

A mixing of various architectural styles and ornamentation of the past and present, including ornamentation from Asia. Eclecticism in architecture was very popular in both Victorian England and in the United States during the second half of the 19^th century.

Elizabethan Architecture

Architecture constructed in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603); Elizabethan architecture followed Tudor architecture, and preceded Jacobean architecture. Elizabethan architecture resulted from the English debut of French and Italian Renaissance architecture, whose classical order and symmetry transformed the asymmetrical and rambling medieval English castle. Elizabethan architecture was revived in the United States in the early 20^th century.

Exposed Rafters

Rafters that are exposed to the outside of a building. Rafters are the inclined, sloping framing members of a roof, and to which the roof covering is affixed.

Facade

An exterior wall, or face, of a building. The front facade of a building contains the building’s main entrance, the rear facade is the building’s rear exterior wall, and the side facades are a building’s side exterior walls.

Fan Light

A semi-circular or semi-elliptical window, with wedge-shaped panes of glass separated by mullions arranged like the spokes of a wagon wheel. Fan lights are usually found over entrance doors and windows, particularly in Federal and Greek Revival homes.

Fireplace Surround

Flared Roof

A roof with a bell-shaped profile. It is sloped with concave curves at the top, and with convex curves at the bottom.

Floor Plan

Fluting

Free-flowing Floor Plan

A floor plan in which there are no (or few) hallways, and rooms open directly onto one another, often through wide doorways. Sliding doors are popular in such a plan, as are central living rooms. The free-flowing floor plans of the Shingle and Prairie Styles are precursors to the modern floor plans of the 1930s onward, which emphasize a great deal of open space.

French Baroque Architecture

A form of Baroque architecture that evolved in France during the reigns of Louis XIII (1610-43), Louis XIV (1643-1714), and Louis XV (1714-74). French Baroque architecture melded traditional French architectural forms (such as steep roofs and irregular rooflines) with classical Italian elements (such as columns, porticos, and segmental pediments), and greatly influenced the non-religious architecture of 18^th-century Europe.

French Doors

Two adjacent doors that share the same door frame, and between which there is no separating vertical member. French doors are often referred to as “double doors.”

Frieze

Gable Roof

A roof with two slopes – front and rear– joining at a single ridge line parallel to the entrance façade. When the ridge line of a gable-roofed house is perpendicular to the street, the roof is said to be a “gable-end roof.”

Gallerie

Gambrel Roof

Gingerbreading

Wooden architectural ornament popular with American folk houses in the late-19^th and early 20^th centuries, particularly in the Stick Style. Gingerbreading often took the form of scalloped or zig-zag-edged clapboards, which were often painted in contrasting colors. At times, gingerbreading could be superfluous and almost gaudy, with excessive frills and curlicues. The widespread use in the mid-19^th century of the jigsaw – a hand tool consisting of a handle attached to a small, thin blade – made gingerbread decorations readily available to home builders.

Grilles

Half-timbering

Hansel-and-Gretel House

Hardware

The metal fittings of a building, such as locks, latches, hinges, handles, and knobs.

Herculaneum and Pompeii

Ancient Roman cities buried by volcanic rock with the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Discovered by excavation in 1748, they provided much insight into the life, times, and architecture of the ancient Romans of the 1^st century. The architecture, interior decoration and regal colors (“Pompeian red,” in particular) of these ancient cities influenced the Federal Style of the early 19^th century.

Hipped Roof

A roof with four sloped sides. The sides meet at a ridge at the center of the roof. Two of the sides are trapezoidal in shape, while the remaining two sides are triangular, and thus meet the ridge at its end-points.

Hood Molding

Incised Linear Shapes

Ionic Order

The second-oldest (mid-6^th – 5^th century B.C.E.) of the three basic orders of classical Greek architecture (the others being the Doric and the Corinthian orders). In ancient Greece, the Ionic order was the feminine order, and the most appropriate for temples constructed in homage to goddesses. In ancient Rome, the Ionic order was much more prominently utilized than the Doric order. An Ionic column is tall and slender, with a fluted shaft of 24 flutes, a capital with prominent volute scrolls, and an elegantly molded base.

Jack Arch

A structural element that provides support over an opening in a masonry wall (i.e., made of brick or stone). Jack arches are not actually arch-shaped, but are, instead, flat, and made of individual wedge-shaped bricks or stones held in place through compression.

Jacobean Architecture

Architecture constructed in England during the reigns of James I, Charles I, Charles II, and James II (1603-1688); Jacobean architecture followed Elizabethan architecture, and preceded the English Renaissance architecture of Inigo Jones. Jacobean architecture made use of many classical elements, such as columns, pilasters, and arcades, but it did so in a free and fanciful manner, rather than according to strict classical tradition. Jacobean architecture was revived in the United States the early 20^th century.

Jettied Story

An upper story of a building that projects out over the story beneath it, common in Colonial American architecture.

Jigsaw

Joinery

Woodworking joints in carpentry.

Lattice-work

A wooden grid of boards overlaid atop an exterior surface. See stick-work.

Mansard Roof

A four-sided hipped roof featuring two slopes on each side, the lower slopes being very steep, almost vertical, and the upper slopes sometimes being so horizontal that they are not visible from the ground. The Mansard roof was named after the French 17^th-century architect Francois Mansart (1598-1666), who popularized the form.

Masonry

Molding

Mullions

Muntins

Dividing bars between panes of glass.

Ogee Arch

An arch consisting of two opposing “S”-curves meeting in a point at the apex. An “S”-curve is itself made up of two curves: a concave curve in its lower half, and a convex curve in its upper half.

Order

Oriel

A projecting window of an upper floor, supported from below by a bracket.

Over-hanging Rafters

Rafters that extend beyond the eaves of a roof. Rafters are the inclined, sloping framing members of a roof, to which the roof covering is affixed.

Pagoda

A tiered tower with multiple roof layers, constructed about a central axis pole. Indigenous to Asia (particularly to China, Japan, and Korea), and typically located there within Buddhist temple precincts, pagodas were built as decorative garden structures in the United States and Europe during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, when exoticism in architectural ornament was highly fashionable. See eclecticism.

Palazzo (pl. pallazi)

Palladian Window

An arched window immediately flanked by two smaller, non-arched windows, popularized by Andrea Palladio in northern Italy in the 16^th century, and frequently deployed by American architects working in the American Georgian and American Palladian styles in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

Panel

A smooth surface, usually rectangular (or sometimes circular) in shape and framed by a molding, and often featuring decorative, sculptural carving.

Parapet

Parthenon

Patio

Similar to a terrace, a patio is an outdoor extension of a building, situated above the ground level, and open to the sky. Colloquially, a patio is a more informal space than a terrace.

Pavilion

Pediment

A decorative triangular piece situated over a portico, door, window, fireplace, etc. The space inside the triangular piece is called the “tympanum,” and is often decorated.

Peek-a-boo Window

Pergola

Picturesque

Like-a-picture, charming, quaint. Picturesque architecture and landscape architecture evolved in England in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and influenced American architecture and landscapes in the 19^th century; winding paths, asymmetrical compositions, rustic or exotic elements (see pagoda), and faux ruins were characteristic of picturesque architecture and landscapes. Picturesque settings were favored for their emotional associations.

Pilaster

Pillar

A structural support, similar to a column, but larger and more massive, and often without ornamentation. Pillars can be round or square in section, and are most often made of brick, stone, cement, or other masonry, although substantial wooden timbers can be formed into pillars.

Pointed Arch

Portico

An entrance porch with columns or pilasters and a roof, and often crowned by a triangular pediment.

Poteaux-en-terre

A mode of wall construction in French Colonial America in which tall posts are rammed into the ground, and the spaces between them are filled with mud plaster, also known as bousillage. Due to the impermanent nature of this construction, very few Poteau- en-terre buildings remain.

Projection

A side wing, tower, or window bay that protrudes from a building.

Pueblo

A traditional community of Native Americans living in the southwestern United States. Pueblos consist of many adjacent houses made of adobe brick, although these houses are often, themselves, called pueblos.

Quoins

Large, prominent masonry units outlining windows, doorways, segments, and corners of buildings.

Rafters

The inclined, sloping framing members of a roof, and to which the roof covering is affixed.

Roof Ridge

Roofline

The part of a building that rises above the building’s eaves. Rooflines can be highly decorative, with balustrades, pediments, statuary, dormer windows, cross gables, etc.

Round-arched Window

A window that is fully arched at its top.

Roundel

Rubble Brick

Saltbox Roof

A gable roof whose rear slope is longer than its front slope. The rear slope often very nearly meets the ground. Saltbox roofs are common to the architecture of Colonial New England.

Sculptural Forms

Architectural elements that have the appearance of having been sculpted.

Segmental Arch

Setback

Shutters

Pairs of solid or slatted window coverings, traditionally hinged to the exterior of a building to either side of a window, used to block light or wind from the interior of a building.

Side Light

A fixed window positioned to the side of a doorway or window.

Slate

A finely-grained, foliated rock, native to Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New York, and found in many colors. Slate has been used to roof buildings in the United States since the colonial era.

Spire

A slender, pointed construction atop a building, often a church.

Stained Glass

Colored glass. Stained glass windows are fitted with pieces of colored glass, which often depict a picture or scene.

Stick-work

A wooden grid of boards overlaid atop an exterior surface. See lattice-work.

Striated Brick

Brickwork made up of rows of bricks of alternating colors, typically red and white.

Stucco

Terrace

An outdoor extension of a building, situated above the ground level, and open to the sky. See patio.

Thatched Roof

A roof covered with straw, which is layered so as to shed rain quickly and effectively.

Tile Roof

Tile Inset

A panel of clay or ceramic tile.

Tower

An exceptionally tall portion of a building.

Traditional Ethos

A spirit, character, custom, etc. shared throughout a common people. A traditional ethos encompasses folk lore, music, art, dress, and building methods, among other things.

Transom Light

A narrow window, sometimes hinged at the top, positioned over a doorway or larger window.

Truss

A rigid framework, as of wooden beams or metal bars, which supports a structure, such as a roof.

Turret

A small tower that pierces a roofline. A turret is usually cylindrical, and is topped by a conical roof.

Tuscan Order