Glossary

Arcade

Series of arches supported by piers or columns (compare colonnade). Blind arcade or arcading: the same applied to the wall surface. Wall arcade: in medieval churches, a blind arcade forming a dado below windows. Also a covered shopping street.

Attic

Small top storey within a roof. Also the storey above the main entablature of a classical fa

Baroque

The term, originally derogatory, for a style at its peak in 17th- and early 18th-century Europe, which developed the classical architecture of the Renaissance towards greater extravagance and drama. Its innovations included greater freedom from the conventions of the orders, much interplay of concave and convex forms, and a preference for the single visual sweep. The revival of the style in early 20th-century Britain, often termed Edwardian Baroque or Neo-Baroque, drew more on English prototypes than on the more expansive variants of the Continent.

Curtain wall

A non-load-bearing external wall applied to a framed structure, in architecture of the 20th century onwards. Also a connecting wall between the towers of a castle.

Decorated

A distinctive phase of English Gothic which developed at the end of the 13th century and continued into the later 14th; sometimes abbreviated to Dec. Named from its elaborate window tracery, which abandoned the simple circular forms of Geometric in favour of more varied patterns based on segments of circles. Dec tracery makes much use of ogee or reversed curves, which were combined in the 14th century to produce reticulated and flowing tracery composed of trefoils, quatrefoils and dagger shapes. Similar inventiveness is seen in the patterns produced by the lierne and tierceron vaults of the period, in the three-dimensional handling of wall surfaces broken up by canopy work and sculpture and in imaginative spatial planning making use of diagonal axes.

Eaves

Overhanging edge of a roof; hence eaves cornice in this position.

Faience

(French): Moulded and fired glazed terracotta (clay ornament or cladding), when coloured or left white.

Flamboyant

The latest phase of French Gothic architecture, with flowing tracery.

Jacobean

The style of early 17th-century England, called after James I (reigned 1603-25), but common into the middle decades. Not always distinguishable from the preceding Elizabethan manner, with which it shares a fondness for densely applied classical ornament and symmetrical gabled façades.

Strapwork

Late 16th and early 17th-century decoration, like interlaced leather straps.

Terracotta

Moulded and fired clay ornament or cladding; when glazed and coloured or left white often called faience.