Glossary of Architecture - P

P

Parclose

Screen or railing used to enclose a chantry, tomb or chapel, in a church, and for the space thus enclosed.

Pavilion

A free standing structure near the main building or an ending structure on building wings

Pedestal (also Plinth)

The base or support on which a statue, obelisk, or column is mounted.

Pediment

(Gr. ἀετός, Lat. fastigium, Fr. ponton), in classic architecture the triangular-shaped portion of the wali above the cornice which formed the termination of the roof behind it. The projecting mouldings of the cornice which surround it enclose the tympanum, which is sometimes decorated with sculpture.

Pendentive

Three-dimensional spandrels supporting the weight of a dome over a square or rectangular base.

Peripteral

A temple or other structure where the columns of the front portico are returned along its sides as wings at the distance of one or two intercolumniations from the walls of the naos or cella. Almost all the Greek temples were peripteral, whether Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian

Phiale

A building or columned arcade around a fountain

Piano nobile

The principal floor of a large house, built in the style of renaissance architecture

Pier

An upright support for a superstructure, such as an arch or bridge.

Pilaster -

A slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall.

Planceer or Planchier

Building element sometimes used in the same sense as a soffit, but more correctly applied to the soffit of the corona in a cornice.

Plinth

The base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests.

Poppyheads

Finials or other ornaments which terminate the tops of bench ends, either to pews or stalls. They are sometimes small human heads, sometimes richly carved images, knots of foliage or finials, and sometimes fleurs-de-lis simply cut out of the thickness of the bench end and chamfered. The term is probably derived from the French poupee doll or puppet used also in this sense, or from the flower, from a resemblance in shape.

Porte-cochère

A porch- or portico-like structure at a main or secondary entrance to a building through which a horse and carriage (or motor vehicle) can pass in order for the occupants to alight under cover, protected from the weather.

Portico

A series of columns or arches in front of a building, generally as a covered walkway.

Prick post

Old architectural name given sometimes to the queen posts of a roof, and sometimes to the filling in quarters in framing.

Prostyle

Free standing columns that are widely spaced apart in a row. The term is often used as an adjective when referring to a portico which projects from the main structure.

Pseudodipteral

A temple which is like the dipteral temple except for omitting the inner row of columns.

Pseudo-peripteral

Temple in which the columns surrounding the naos have had walls built between them, so that they become engaged columns, as in the great temple at Agrigentum. In Roman temples, in order to increase the size of the celia, the columns on either side and at the rear became engaged columns, the portico only having isolated columns.

Pteroma

In Classical architecture, the enclosed space of a portico, peristyle, or stoa, generally behind a screen of columns.

Pycnostyle

Term given by Vitruvius to the intercolumniation between the columns of a temple, when this was equal to 11/2 diameters.