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A slab on the top of a capital of a column.
Illustration from Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Museum
Acanthus (a KAN this)
Perennial hares or small shrubs native to the Mediterranean and having pinnately lobed basal leaves with spiny margins and showy spikes of white or purplish flowers.
Leaf used in Corinthian column capitals.
Illustration from the Williams-Butler House
Anthemion
An ornament of honeysuckle or palm leaves in a radiating cluster. Also called honeysuckle ornament.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Architrave (AR ka trave)
The lowest of the 3 main parts of an entablature: the undecorated lintel resting on the columns.
Illustration from Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Museum
Bead-and-reel
A convex molding having the form of disks alternating with spherical or elongated beads.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Capital
The head or crowning feature of a column or pilaster.
Illustration of Corinthian capital from the Williams-Butler House
Caryatid
Sculpted female figure used in place of a column to support an entablature.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Column
A supporting pillar usually consisting of a base, a cylindrical shaft, and a capital.
Illustration of Ionic style column from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Corinthian Order
The most ornate of the five classical orders, characterized by a slender fluted column having an ornate, bell-shaped capital decorated with acanthus leaves.
Illustration from the Williams-Butler House
Cornice (KOR nis)
A decorative molded projection at the top of a wall, window or construction.
The upper part of an entablature.
Raking Cornice
The sloping sides of a pediment.
Dentil (Root: "dent" means tooth)
A small rectangular block used in a series forming a molding under a cornice.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Doric Order
The oldest and simplest of the three orders of clasical Greek architecture, characterized by heavy, fluted columns with plain saucer-shaped capitals and no base.
Developed on the mainland among the Dorian people and was the most common style in Greece from the 7C onwards. The columns, which had twenty flutes (see below) rested directly on the stylobate without bases; the capitals were plain. the entablature consisted of three parts, one above the other: the architrave, the frieze and the cornice.
Illustration from the Birge Memorial
Drop
Small drop-like projections carved below a triglyph or below a Doric entablature.
Also called a "gutta."
Echinus (i KY nis)
A convex molding just below the abacus of a Doric capital.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Egg-and-dart
A molding consisting of egg-shaped figures alternating with arrow heads.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Engaged column
A column attached to, or partly sunk into, a wall of pier. Also called an "applied column" or "attached column."
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Entablature
The upper part of an order, consisting of architrave, frieze, and cornice.
Illustration from the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Museum
Entasis (en TAY sis)
The very slight convex curve used on Greek and later columns to correct the optical illusion of concavity which would result if the sides were straight. Also used on spires and other structures for the same reason.
Illustration from St. Francis RC Church.
Fluting (FLOO ting)
A decorative motif consisting of a series of uniform, usually vertical, flutes (grooves).
Illustration from Forest Lawn Cemetery Main Street Entrance Gate
Fret
A decorative design contained within a band or border, consisting of repeated, often geometric figures. Also called "key pattern."
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Frieze (freez)
The plain or decorated horizontal part of an entablature between the cornice and the architrave.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Gutta (GUT a) Plural: guttae (GUT ee)
Small drop-like projections carved below a triglyph or below a Doric entablature.
Also called a "drop."
Honeysuckle
An ornament of honeysuckle or palm leaves in a radiating cluster. Also called anthemion.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Ionic Order
An order of classical Greek architecture characterized by two opposed volutes in the capital.
This style developed among the Ionians who had settled in Asia Minor in the 5C BC and was considered a feminine style. Its delicate grace and rich ornament contrasted with the austere strength of the Doric order.
Its main characteristics are tall slim columns with 24 flutes resting on molded bases and crowned bt capitals in the form of a double scroll; an entablature consiting of an architrave, a continuous sculpted frieze and a cornice decorated with egg and dart and leaf and dart molding; a pediment with "acroteria" shaped like palm leaves at the angles. The best example is the temple of Athena Nike in the Acropolis.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Ionic and Doric Orders: a comparison
Leaf-and-dart
Ornamentation.
Illustration from a door in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
Lintel (LIN tl)
The horizontal beam that forms the upper member of a window or door frame and supports the structure above it.
Illustration from the Harlow C. Curtiss House
Metope (MET a pee)
Any of the spaces between two triglyphs on a Doric frieze.
Illustration to the left from the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Museum
Modillion (mo DILL yin)
An ornamental bracket, usually in the form of a scroll with acanthus, used in series beneath a Corinthian, Composite, or Roman Ionic cornice.
Illustration from the Williams-Butler House
Order
In classical architecture, a column with base (usually), shaft, capital, and entablature, decorated and proportioned according to one of the accepted modes - Doric (Greek Doric and Roman Doric), Tuscan, Ionic, Corinthian, or Composite.
Pediment (PED a ment)
In classical architecture a low-pitched triangular gable above a facade, or a smaller version over porticos above the doorway or above a window.
A triangular gable end of the roof above the horizontal cornice, often with sculpture.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Broken pediment: A pediment open or broken either at the apex.
Open-bed or broken-bed pediment: pediment with a gap in the base molding.
Pediment: Open-topped or Broken-apex: A pediment where the sloping sides are returned before reaching the apex.
Illustration from 470 Linwood Ave
Pediment: Swan's neck: A broken pediment having an outline formed by a pair of S-curves tangent to the horizontal cornice at the ends of the pediment and rising to a pair of scrolls on either side of the center, where a finial often rises between the scrolls.
Illustration from 447 Linwood Ave.
Peristyle
A series of columns surrounding a building or enclosing a court.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Pilaster
(pi LAS ter)
A shallow rectangular column projecting only slightly from a wall and, in classical architecture, conforming with one of the orders.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Rosette (row ZET)
A rose-shaped patera . In the illustration, there is a rosette in the middle of the quatrefoil.
Illustration from the Stephen M. Clement House
Stylobate (STEYE low bate)
A course of masonry forming the foundation for a row columns, esp. the outermost colonnade of a classical temple.
Triglyph (TRY glif)
Ornament in a Doric frieze, consisting of raised blocks of three vertical bands separated by V-shaped grooves, alternating with plain or sculptured panels called metopes.
Illustration from the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Museum
Tympanum (TIM pa nim)
The ornamental recessed space or panel enclosed by the molding of a pediment.
Also the space between an arch and the lintel of a door or window.
Illustration from Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Museum
Volute (va LOOT)
A spiral scroll on an Ionic capital; smaller versions appear on Ionic, Composite and Corinthian capitals.
Illustration from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery