Looking at Buildings

Glossary

Mercat: (Scots): Market. The mercat cross, which is topped more often by a heraldic or other finial rather than a cross, was the focus of market activity and local ceremonial.
Merlons: The solid uprights of a battlement.
Metopes: The spaces between the triglyphs in a Doric frieze, often ornamented with sculpture.
Mezzanine: Low storey between two higher ones.
Middle cruck: A type of timber construction in which the upper supports or blades rise from halfway up the walls to a tie-beam or collar-beam, rather than continuing up to the apex.
Mild steel: The stronger modern equivalent of wrought iron.
Minimalism: Kitchen, Notting Hill
by John Pawson
A term adopted from painting and sculpture for a tendency within Modernist architecture from the 1980s onwards towards simple forms and volumes, typified by the all-white interior.
Misericord: (lit. mercy): Shelf on a carved bracket placed on the underside of a hinged choir stall seat to support an occupant while standing.
Mitre: In joinery, the meeting of two members of identical section at a diagonal.
Mixer-courts: Forecourts to groups of houses shared by vehicles and pedestrians.