Art History resources from Credo: Elements & Styles

The spanning of a wall opening by means of separate units assembled into an upward curve that maintains its shape and stability through the mutual pressure of a load and the separate pieces.

Mass of masonry built against a wall to strengthen it.

In engineering, a chamber, usually of steel but sometimes of wood or reinforced concrete, used in the construction of foundations or piers in or near a body of water.

From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms
A free-standing pillar, usually circular in section, and often built in accordance with one of the orders of architecture.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Molded or decorated projection that forms the crowning feature at the top of a building wall or other architectural element; specifically, the uppermost of the three principal members of the classic entablature, hence by extension any similar crowning and projecting element in the decorative arts.

A roof circular or (rarely) elliptical in plan and usually hemispherical in form, placed over a circular, square, oblong, or polygonal space.

In architecture, furniture, and decorative objects, a surface or group of surfaces of projecting or receding contours.

High, tapering structure crowning a tower and having a general pyramidal outline.

Structure, the greatest dimension of which is its height.

Bands or bars of stone, wood, or other material, either subdividing an opening or standing in relief against a wall and forming an ornamental pattern of solid members and open spaces.

Ceiling over a room, formed in any one of a variety of curved shapes.

In architecture, the casement or sash, fitted with glass, which closes an opening in the wall of a structure without excluding light and air.

German school of art, design, and architecture founded in 1919 in Weimar by the architect Walter Gropius, who aimed to fuse art, design, architecture, and crafts into a unified whole.

From Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought
Brutalism (from French brut, ‘unadorned’) was an architectural movement which had great vogue in the 1950s and 1960s.

From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture
Architectural principle according to which the form of a building is to be derived from the function it is intended to fulfill; the schematic and technological aspect of architectural modernism (Rationalism), whose wider theoretical stance comprises also philosophical, political, social, economic, stylistic and symbolical questions.

It includes several trends in English architecture that were predominant during the reigns (1714–1830) of George I, George II, George III, and George IV.

Style of architecture that flourished in Europe from the mid-12th century to the end of the 15th century.

Term designating a return to the building styles of the Middle Ages.

From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Design Since 1900
Is a general design term that emerged in the late 1980s. An international surge of interest in ecological issues resulted from various man-made disasters (e.g., the leaks of radiation at Chernobyl and crude oil in Alaska) combined with the growing awareness of the accumulating effects on the environment of the industrial world (e.g., global warming).

From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture
The phrase ‘International Style’ was one among many terms used in the 1920s to denote modern architecture. Introduced by an American in order to characterize a particular kind of European architecture (Rationalism), the term became generally applied in later decades to a broad range of contemporary buildings.

The architecture of the Muslim world, highly diverse but unified by climate, culture, and a love of geometric and arabesque ornament, as well as by the mobility of ideas, artisans, and architects throughout the region.

Style of architecture used in England in the 11th and 12th centuries, also known as Romanesque.

From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture
As with most concepts used in architecture, the concept of an ‘organic’ style is borrowed from other fields and remains difficult to delimit once applied to architecture and building. It subsumes the harmonic relationship between the whole and the parts, but is also tied to natural processes such as birth, growth, and death.

From The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures: The Southwest
The quintessential Southwestern architecture is that found in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico—hand-crafted adobe structures in shades of warm oranges and sunset reds, with flat roofs and projecting vigas.

Descriptive of the English architecture and decoration of the first half of the 16th cent., prevailing during the reigns (1485–1558) of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I.

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
According to architect Amos Rapoport ninety-five percent of the world's structures qualify as examples of vernacular buildings, if what is understood by the term are those structures that are not designed by professional architects.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Style of architecture, furnituremaking, and decorative art covering the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1901. The era was influenced by significant industrial and urban development, and the massive expansion of the British Empire.

In architecture, a building designed as a place of worship for the Christian church community.