• abatjour: A contrivance, as a skylight used to deflect light downward. 2. A sloping cover, as for a window, opening upward to prevent those within from seeing what is outside and below.
• abat-sons: In French, anything intended to reflect sound, as of a bell, downward or horizontally.
• abatvent: A contrivance to break the force of, or prevent the entrance of wind, as in a louver or chimney cowl.
• abatvoix: A reflector of sound.
• abreuvoir: A joint or chink in masonry, to be filled with mortar.
• acajou: The French word for mahogany.
• aligreek: A meander; probably a corruption of the French words a la Greque.
• allée: French term for a broad walk planted with trees.
• ancien: A senior student in a French atelier.
• Angevin: The medieval style developed in Anjoy, France.
• Angkor-Vat: The architecturally famous ancient city of Southern Siam.
• anglo-choinois: French term for a type of irregular informal landscape-garden supposedly evolved from Chinese prototypes and embellished with buildings in the Chinese Taste popularized by Chambers.
• appui: A solid, separate member, as a windowsill or the top member of a parapet or balustrade.
• apse chapel: A chapel opening from an apse; such a radial chapel is a conspicuous feature of French Gothic architecture.
• arc: An arch. 2. A division or foil of a trefoil, quatrefoil, cinquefoil, or multi-foil arch. 3. Any part of the circumference of a circle.
• arc doubleau: In French, an arch, usually very massive, carried across a nave or other wide space, with the view of supporting a groined vault, or of merely stiffening a wagon vault, and, in some cases, of allowing for the more easy building of the centring.
• arc en tiers point: In French, the point where the two determining arcs of a pointed arch meet, the apex. The term means originally the third or culminating point of a triangle.
• architecture parlante: Architecture expressive of its purpose by means of its form, a term first used in print by L. Vaudoyer in respect of the French 18th c. Neo-Classicists, notably Ledoux.
• architecture parlent: Literally, “speaking architecture.” First used in 18th-century France to describe an architecture that clearly expressed its functional purpose.
• back arch: An arch whose interior surface is different behind the face of a wall that it is at the face; a usual mode of construction in medieval buildings and in French architecture of the 17th and 18th century; an arriere-voussure or rear arch.
• bande noire: In France, a number of persons supposed to have been associated as purchasers of the lands and buildings offered for sale by the revolutionary governments of 1791 and following years; or the whole number of such person taken together. The term implies the mischief done by the destruction of precious monuments of art.
• basse-taille: Bas-relief; the older French term which was in use until the 17th century. It has passed into English as a term used by collectors and dealers in ancient works of art.
• bastile: A fortified tower. Le Bastile de la Porte S. Antoine is the chief state prison of France, built by Charles V.
• batten: From French, baton; and from Latin, bastum, “stick.” A narrow strip of wood used to cover and seal a joint or crack. 2. A length of metal pipe hung from the gridiron, for suspending scenery or equipment, as drop scenes, flats, or lighting units. Also called pipe batten. 3. A small board or strip of wood used for various building purposes, as to cover joints between boards, support shingles or roofing tiles, or provide a base for lathing.
• Beaux Arts: French for “fine arts,” also the name of the influential Parisian architectural school (Ecole des Beaux-Arts) that influenced American architects and architectural education.
• Beaux Arts architecture: Historical and eclectic design on a monumental scale, as taught at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in the 19th century.
• Beaux Arts style: French for “fine arts,” also the name of the influential Parisian architectural school (Ecole des Beaux-Arts) that influenced American architects and architectural education.
• Beaux-Arts: French for “fine arts,” also the name of the influential Parisian architectural school (Ecole des Beaux-Arts) that influenced American architects and architectural education.
• Beaux-Arts Classicism: French for “fine arts,” also the name of the influential Parisian architectural school (Ecole des Beaux-Arts) that influenced American architects and architectural education.
• beffroi: In French, a framework for supporting a heavy bell. 2. In France and neighboring countries, a communal or civil bell tower as distinguished from the clocher or steeple of a church. The beffrois, which first appear at the close of the twelfth century in France, are in some cases isolated, in others attached to the town hall. Those of the manufacturing towns of Belgium are particularly interesting. The name is applied also to a movable tower of wood used in sieges.
• bibliotheque: Library.
• board-and-batten: From French, baton; and from Latin, bastum, “stick.” A narrow strip of wood used to cover and seal a joint or crack
• Bois Jourdain: A French fossiliferous marble, dark gray in tone, having white veins with a reddish tinge and small red markings.
• boulder ditch: Also see French drain.
• boule work: A method and style of furniture decoration introduced by A.C. Boulle, in France, during the reign of Louix XIV., and characterized chiefly by the use of inlays of metal (usually brass) and tortoise shell upon the flat surfaces of the cabinet work.
• Bourbon architecture: The architecture of the reigns of the Bourbon kings of France, 1590-1789.
• bourse: In French, a building or room used for the meeting of persons who deal in merchandise of any sort; a merchants’ exchange. In modern usage, more commonly limited to the business of buying and selling of public securities, stocks, and bonds, and in this sense adopted by the Continental nations under the forms of Boerse in German, Borsa in Italian, etc., or in the unaltered French form….
• bousillage: A “nogging” wall infill made of mud and lime with straw, animal hair, or Spanish moss as a binder and applied on a horizontal lattice between posts or studs. Typical of French Mississippi Colonial construction.
• boutant: Type of support. An arc-boutant, or flying buttress, serves to sustain a vault, and is self-sustained by some strong wall or massive work. A pillar boutant is a large chain or jamb of stone, made to support a wall, terrace, or vault. The word is French, and comes from the verb bouter, “to butt” or “abut”.[3]
• bric-à-brac: Pejorative term for Renaissance-Revival buildings based on French precedents and overloaded with busy ornaments.
• Brignoles: A family name for three marbles of French origin: Jaune de Brignoles, having a light yellowish and gold ground, streaked with interlacing veins of vivid pink and red, and also bearing spots, streaks, and clouds of crystalline white; Rose de Brignoles and Violet de Brignoles have much the same description but with more rose and violet spots, respectively.
• buffet: A sideboard; especially a large, stationary, and somewhat elaborate one with shelves, racks, and the like, for serving refreshments, 2. In public places, a room where refreshments are served. Generally provided only with counters or bars, and thus distinguished from a restaurant or cafe, which has tables and chairs; sometimes a place for slight repasts only, luncheons and the like. In both these senses the word has partly lost the original French signification.
• caisson foundation: From French, caisse, “box.” A technique for constructing deep foundations in loose, saturated soils, developed in the United States, 1865-90. An open-bottom air-tight chamber is lowered into the soil and the earth is excavated from beneath it by workmen called “sand hogs.” As the chamber descends, the air pressure inside the chamber is increased to match the water pressure outside; meanwhile the hole left above is lined or filled with stones or concrete. When dense soils or solid rock is reached, the chamber is filled with concrete.
• calcaire-grossiere: A fossiliferous limestone of the Paris basin, locally used for building.
• camaieu: In French, a cameo; hence, in French and adopted into English, painting in monochrome; especially that done with the desired effect of giving a somewhat deceptive appearance of relief.
• Campan marbles: A group name for a wide variegated French marbles quarried in the Campan district, Hautes-Pyrenees. Some of the names are Campan Griotte, Melange, Rouge, Vert Truite, Vert, and Vert. They range from a rich red ground with interlacings of very fine green veins, including large streaks and veins of white, to a light green ground broken by a lacework of fine dark-green veins.
• capitole: In the south of France, a building supposed to represent the Capitol of Rome, or of a province; it being assumed that the principal building of any Roman colony would have that name. The best known of these buildings is the one at Toulouse; it is the palace of the municipality, or Hotel de Ville. The exterior was built in the middle of the 18th century.
• Carolingian: The pre-Romanesque architecture of the late 8th and 9th century in France and Germany. So called after the emperor Charlemagne (768-814). The cathedral of Aachen is the best-known example.
• Carolingian architecture: The pre-Romanesque architecture of the late 8th and 9th century in France and Germany. So called after the emperor Charlemagne (768-814). The cathedral of Aachen is the best-known example.
• casement door: A French door.
• caserne: A barrack for troops – a building for the lodging of soldiers. The French term, rare in English; it is used, however, for those buildings of great architectural pretensions which are not uncommon in the cities of the continent. Of these one of the most noted is that facing the Champs de Mars, in Paris, which was built in the reign of Louis XV as a military school, and several others of the 18th century.
• chambranle: A structural feature, often ornamental, enclosing the sides and top of a doorway, window, fireplace, or similar opening. The top piece or lintel is called the transverse and the side pieces or jambs the ascendants.
• Champville: A marble quarried in southern France. It has a creamy ground of even and close texture, more or less tinged with yellow and sometimes rose, with occasional gray spots.
• chantier: In French, a workshop; in English, a shed to protect stone cutters or other workmen from the sun and rain.
• chartreuse: A monastery of the Carthusian monks, especially in France.
• château: A French country castle, with or without fortifications.
• Château Style: The Château Style is a grand adaptation of the 16th-century French châteaux of the Loire Valley. The combined efforts of François I, Catherine de Medici and Dianne de Poitiers produced an enchanting mixture of Renaissance Classicism and Gothic organic design.
• chemin-de-ronde: In French, and by adoption in English, a continuous gangway behind a rampart; providing a means of communication along the walls of a fortified enclosure.
• chevaux: Protective spikes along the top of a wall or fence.
• ciel: The tester of a bed; especially the underside of such a tester considered as a surface for decoration. From the French word meaning heaven or sky; hence a canopy, etc.
• Circassian: Also see French walnut.
• Cistercian architecture: Severe Romanesque architectural style used by the Cistercian order of monks founded at Cieaux (France) in 1098 and which rapidly spread throughout Europe.
• clocher: French bell-tower.
• clochette: French term for a small, bell-shaped ornament in various forms.
• Cluniac architecture: That of the style developed by the Cluniac monks, and especially that of the great abbey of Cluny in the French department of Asone-et-Loire…
• colombier: In French, a pigeon house. In English, a large building of the sort, a separate tower of considerable size and importance, such as were attached to large farms, manor houses, and strong castles in the Middle ages…
• Comblanchien: A compact, fine-grained, oolitic limestone of a rose putty color, having very fine fossils and some rust specks and glass veins. It is quarried in southern France.
• conciergerie: French term for a porter’s lodge.
• concours: A competition.
• conte crayon: A fairly hard French square-stick crayon; the dark reddish brown variety has long been a favorite for architectural sketching.
• corbeille: In French, a basket. Employed in English in the 18th century to designate any basketlike architectural member, especially capitals resembling baskets either in form or decoration; now obsolete.
• Court style: Earliest phase of the Rayonnant style of French Gothic, closely associated with the reign of King Louis IX…
• coussinet: The stone which is placed on the impost of a pier to receive the first stone of an arch. 2. The part of the front of an Ionic capital between the abacus and echinus.
• credence: A small table near the altar of a church to hold the bread and wine.
• cremone: Casement bolts with a rack-and-pinion mechanism controlled by a rotary handle: two sliding rods, fixed to one leaf of e.g. a French window, are moved up and down in opposite directions into sockets in a frame in order to lock it…
• cremorne: Casement bolts with a rack-and-pinion mechanism controlled by a rotary handle: two sliding rods, fixed to one leaf of e.g. a French window, are moved up and down in opposite directions into sockets in a frame in order to lock it…
• cremorne bolt: A type of hardware for locking French windows or the like; a rotating handle actuates sliding rods which move in opposite directions, extending from the edges of the window into sockets that are fixed in the frame.
• croisée: See French window.
• croquis: A sketch.
• Cubism: Movement in art originating with the work of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, mainly c.1905-14…
• dégagement: In French, a space rather restricted as to size, forming a connection between two rooms, or between a room and a more public space as a hall or passage; thus avoiding the inconvenience of opening adjoining apartments directly into each other, and giving more privacy…
• depot: A railroad station. 2. A storage or collection center. 3. In France, a building for military storage.
• Directoire: A transitional classicist style preceding the Empire style, named after the Directoire rule in France (1795-1799).
• Directoire style: A transitional classicist style preceding the Empire style, named after the Directoire rule in France (1795-1799).
• door window: A French door.
• dormers: Window set in a gable projecting from sloping roof. Frequently admits light into bedroom; the word “dormer” is derived from the French verb meaning “to sleep”.
• double doors: Two adjacent doors that share the same door frame, and between which there is no separating vertical member. Double doors are often referred to as “French doors”, due to their preponderance in French architecture.
• Early French style: The first of the three phases of French Gothic architecture, characterized by the pointed arch and geometric tracery.
• échauguette: A turret, watch tower, or other place, provided for guards or watchmen; usually, in Medieval fortifications, corbelled out from a curtain wall or from a salient angle, and dominating the battlements, either open or with a roof. Hence, in modern usage, an angle turret springing from a corbel or cul de lampe, as in many late Gothic and early Renaissance houses in France and Germany.
• echelle: Scale, as of a drawing.
• École des Beaux Arts: During the last quarter of the 19th century, American neoclassicism embraced the architecture of Rome and the Renaissance together with that of Greece. How to adapt and combine elements of this broad classical heritage to meet present demands was the aim of a new class of professional architects. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris epitomized this methodology. Many Americans trained in Paris.
• École des Beaux-Arts: The influential French art school founded in 1648. It had a considerable effect on American architects in the late 19th century, advocating the use of Classical and Renaissance elements in grand designs.
• Elysee: Official residence in Paris of the President of the Republic of France.
• Empire: Design of the period of the first French Empire, largely initiated by the architects Charles Percier and Pierre F.L. Fontaine.
• Empire style: Design of the period of the first French Empire, largely initiated by the architects Charles Percier and Pierre F.L. Fontaine.
• en axe: French for on axis.
• en suite: In French, forming a series; in English, especially said of rooms opening into one another with doors carefully placed opposite one another.
• entourage: Environment. The grounds immediately surrounding a building.
• envoi: A drawing made by a scholarship student to be sent to his masters.
• escoinson: Old French term for the inner edge of a window jamb. In Scotland it is “scuntion.”
• espagnolette: A contrivance for locking casements or French windows, doors, and the like, by means of long rods sunk in or attached to the inner face of the meeting stile, and operated by turning a handle or key.
• esquisse-esquisse: A rough sketch; in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the twelve-hour and twenty-four-hour sketches.
• estaminet: A public eating place where smoking is permitted.
• étoile: French for star, so a circus where several straight paths converge, especially in a wood.
• eye form: The vesica piscis, or “fish-bladder” outline, used in symbolical sculpture, mosaic, etc., in tracery of the late Decorated period, and in French and German flamboyant tracery.
• Flamboyant: The term applied to a period of Medieval architecture in France, in which the mullions and tracery terminate in waved lines of contrary flexure in flamelike forms. It extended through the 15th and half of the 16th century.
• Flamboyant style: The term applied to a period of Medieval architecture in France, in which the mullions and tracery terminate in waved lines of contrary flexure in flamelike forms. It extended through the 15th and half of the 16th century.
• flèche: Slender wooden spire rising from a roof. The word is French for “arrow.”
• fleur-de-lis: A stylized three-petaled iris flower tied by an encircling band, used as the heraldic bearing of the royal family of France.
• fleur-de-lys: A stylized three-petaled iris flower tied by an encircling band, used as the heraldic bearing of the royal family of France.
• Fontainebleau: Style of architectural decoration at the French Royal Château created 1528-58 by Italian Francesco Primaticcio, French, and Flemish artists for François Ier…
• fourches patibulaires: Gallows which could accommodate simultaneously a number of victims; consisted of stone pillars connected by wooden beams, constructed in the Middle Ages by the French nobility on their lands at the behest of the King; the number of pillars in the gallows depended on the rank of the noble. The King himself had as many pillars on the Royal Gallows as he thought necessary. Criminals were either hanged there, ascending to their nooses on inside ladders, or brought there after execution for public display. The gallows were used not only for human beings but also for animals, particularly for pigs that had been condemned to death for eating children.
• Francis I style: The columniation of the early phase of French Renaissance architecture named after Francis I (1515-1547), merging Gothic elements with the full use of Italian decoration. Fontainebleau and the chateaux of the Loire, among them Chambord, are outstanding examples.
• French arch: Also see flat arch.
• French Baroque architecture: A form of Baroque architecture that evolved in France during the reigns of Louis XIII (1610-43), Louis XIV (1643-1714), and Louis XV (1714-74). French Baroque architecture melded traditional French architectural forms (such as steep roofs and irregular rooflines) with classical Italian elements (such as columns, porticos, and segmental pediments), and greatly influenced the non-religious architecture of 18th-century Europe.
• French casement: A type of door.
• French Chateaux : There are many styles of chateaux all originating in France. The most renowned are those in the Loire valley built during the late medieval and Renaissance periods between 1300 and 1600. See also Palazzo.
• French Colonial: An architectural style characterized by: narrow door and window openings, paired casement windows with exterior shutters, paired French doors, steeply pitched hipped or belcast gable roof, and half-timber framing with a stucco covering. In rural areas the main floor is often raised and has an extended porch (called a galerie).
• French cottage: Throughout 1870-80 the cottage with a mansard roof was referred to as a French cottage, and historians link this cottage to the development of the Second Empire style. In vernacular design the French cottage was less Second Empire than the design of high-style buildings, and it was more generally French. One could argue that it was a hybrid affair with Italianate features, and that over time it absorbed other kinds of cottage detailing.
• French Creek granite: A fine-grain, hard, dark-colored granite of Pennsylvania; when polished the surface is almost black, the hammered faces light.
• French curve: A drafting aid in template form, enabling the draftsman to draw various curves or arcs thereof by guiding his pencil or drawing pen along an edge.
• French door: A door having rectangular glass panes extending throughout its length, and often hung in pairs.
• French drain: A drainage trench filled with rock or brick fragments and covered with soil.
• French flier: A flier of a three-quarter-turn stair, around an open wall.
• French flyer: A flier of a three-quarter-turn stair, around an open wall.
• French Grand Antique: A marble composed of large and small black-and-white fragments, producing sharp contrasts.
• French motif: Design evoking historic styles of construction from France.
• French Order: Corinthian capital featuring the cock and fleur-de-lys. 2. Type of order invented by the l’Orme with bands of sculpted leaves concealing the shaft-drums. 3. Classical Order consisting of three columns set at the points of an equilateral triangular plan, with creepers trailing in spiral forms around the shafts…
• French polish: A finish for wood secured by repeated rubbing with shellac or a varnish gum dissolved in an abundance of alcohol.
• French Renaissance motif: Design evoking historic styles of construction from France, specifically Second Empire.
• French Revival style: The picturesque French Revival incorporated stylistic features from a broad period of French architecture spanning several centuries, but found its essence in the landed country estates of Brittany and Normandy. The most distinctive identifying features are the steeply pitched hipped pavilion roof, conical tower, and French doors. This popular style, lasting well into the 1940s, was used for high-style country estates and smaller suburban houses throughout America.
• French roof: A mansard roof whose sloping sides are nearly perpendicular.
• French roofing tile: A flat, corrugated tile about nine inches by sixteen inches with interlocking flush side joints.
• French Second Empire style: Eclectic mixture of Baroque, Empire, François Ier, Louis Quatorze, Louis Seize, Neo-Classical, and Renaissance styles prevalent in the France of Emperor Napoléon III.
• French stuc: An imitation stone formed by plasterwork.
• French tile: A type of interlocking roof tile.
• French treatment: Design evoking historic styles of France.
• French truss: Also see Fink truss.
• French walnut: Also see French walnut.
• French window: A doorway equipped with two glazed doors hinged at the jambs.
• French windows: See French doors.
• full-centred: Semicircular; said of an arch. Obviously a translation (partially erroneous) of the French term plein cintre.
• fumoir: In French, a smoking room; especially, one in a public building or place of public resort, or the like.
• fust: The shaft of a column or pilaster, equivalent to the French fut. Obsolete. 2. Locally, in Devonshire, the ridge of a roof.
• galbe: In French, the general outline, the exterior proportions and character, especially and primarily, of an architectural or decorative composition. Used in the same sense in English, and expressing an idea covered by no one English word.
• galerie: A French style of porch that often extended around at least three sides of the house and often was raised off the ground to the second-story level. It was supported by the house’s roof which extended beyond the house walls thus making the galerie intrinsic to the original house construction.
• Galerie des rois: Carved band with the effigies of the kings of France located along the facade of a Gothic cathedral.
• garconniere: French origin, in French and Cajun Louisiana, a sleeping loft or separate dormitory for young men.
• gare: A railroad station.
• Grand Prix de Rome: An architectural scholarship for study in Rome, awarded through competition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; it is the most advanced student competition, open only to French students.
• hameau: Hamlet, but applied to a cluster of purpose-made intentionally ‘rural’ buildings erected in a French landscape-garden to enable the upper echelons of society to engage in ‘pastoral’ play-acting…
• Henri Deux: The second phase of the early French Renaissance, named after Henri II (1547-1559) who succeeded Francis I. Italian classic motifs began to supplant the Gothic elements, both in architecture and in decoration. The West Side of the Court of the Louvre (1546-59) is an outstanding example.
• Henri Deux architecture: The second phase of the early French Renaissance, named after Henri II (1547-1559) who succeeded Francis I. Italian classic motifs began to supplant the Gothic elements, both in architecture and in decoration. The West Side of the Court of the Louvre (1546-59) is an outstanding example.
• Henri IV style: The early phase of the Classical period of French architecture, named after Henry IV (1589-1610), preceding the architecture of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. It is particularly strong in domestic architecture and town-planning arrangements. The Place des Vosges in Paris is the outstanding example.
• Henri Quatre: The early phase of the Classical period of French architecture, named after Henry IV (1589-1610), preceding the architecture of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. It is particularly strong in domestic architecture and town-planning arrangements. The Place des Vosges in Paris is the outstanding example.
• High Gothic: Gothic architecture known in German as Hockgotik. 2. Supposedly ‘classic’ period of Gothic architecture, embracing Northern French Cathedrals erected c.1195-c.1230.
• holy water basin: In French, a holy water basin, usually set at the entrance to a church. The benitier may be supported on a shaft or pedestal or corbelled out from the wall. Also see beniter, pila, and stoup.
• horn: Something projecting, usually of small size, and tapering more or less toward a point. One of the four angles of a Corinthian abacus is in this sense a horn; and the term may be applied to one of the strong-stemmed projections terminating in leaf form which were characteristic of 13th century Gothic sculpture. (French crochet.) 2. A volute like that of an Ionic capital, for which the more extended term ram’s horn would seem to be more appropriate. 3. One of the corners of the Mensa of an altar. 4. That part of a jamb extending above the head of a door or window frame, or the horizontal extension of a windowsill beyond the jamb.
• hôtel: A large French town house.
• Hotel de Ville: The town hall or city hall.
• hotel Dieu: A hospital.
• jardin: A garden.
• jardin anglais: Literally, an English garden; the term used in French for a piece of ground laid out in an ornamental way with some supposed imitation of natural scenery, and with winding, rather than straight, paths, and the like.
• jardin anglo-chinois: French term for the informal type of natural garden.
• jet d’eau: A jet of water, a fountain.
• jour: In French, primarily the day; hence, daylight, and used in the sense of an opening for the admission of light. In English, used in such compounds as abatjour, a jour.
• lalique: A type of French glass that has low-relief designs. The designs are molded, pressed, and then engraved on the glass.
• lanterne des morts: A graveyard lantern; a slender, tower-like structure, usually in the form of a hollow column, terminated by a pierced turret containing a light which shone through the openings; such towers (many erected in medieval times) were common in France.
• Lascaux Cave: A cave in Lascaux, France, containing wall paintings and engravings thought to date from c13,000-8500 B.C.
• lavoir: In French, in general, any place for washing. As understood in English, especially a place arranged on a river bank, or the like, for washing clothes and linen…
• leaf: A hinged part; one of the movable members of a door or shutter. Also, one of the two halves of a cavity wall. The term valve is sometimes used to describe one of the leaves of a French door, double door, etc. In the realm of architectural ornamentation, the term leaf is used to describe a decorative motif that represents a leaf; quite often applied to molding.
• L’Ecole des Beaux Arts: During the last quarter of the 19th century, American neoclassicism embraced the architecture of Rome and the Renaissance together with that of Greece. How to adapt and combine elements of this broad classical heritage to meet present demands was the aim of a new class of professional architects. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris epitomized this methodology. Many Americans trained in Paris.
• Liberty: Allegorical female figure frequently depicted by French Revolutionary artists, complete with flaming torch and Phrygian cap. 2. Italian Art Nouveau, called Stile Liberty.
• limoges: Manufactory of fine china named after the city in France for which it is located.
• loge: A small town or stall in which a student is enclosed to work alone – en loge. 2. A stall or location in some theaters.
• Loire-château: Type of 19th c. architecture based on French Renaissance 16th c. châteaux of the Loire valley in the time of François Ier…
• Louis Quatorze: The style of the high Classical period in France under the rule of Louis XIV (1643-1715) in architecture, decoration, and furniture, culminating in the building of Versailles.
• Louis Quatorze Architecture: The style of the high Classical period in France under the rule of Louis XIV (1643-1715) in architecture, decoration, and furniture, culminating in the building of Versailles.
• Louis Quinze: The Classical and Rococo style in France under the rule of Louis XV (1715-1774) in architecture, decoration, and furniture.
• Louis Quinze Architecture: The Classical and Rococo style in France under the rule of Louis XV (1715-1774) in architecture, decoration, and furniture.
• Louis Seize: The later Rococo and classicist phase of the 18th century in France under the rule of Louis XVI (1774-1792), terminated by the French Revolution.
• Louis Seize Architecture: The later Rococo and classicist phase of the 18th century in France under the rule of Louis XVI (1774-1792), terminated by the French Revolution.
• Louis Treize: Style of French-Renaissance architecture coinciding with the reign of King Louis XIII, but continuing until the 1660s, as Le style Louis Quatorze did not really evolve until then. The best-known buildings of the period are the Luxemborg Palace and the west front of St-Gervais, both in Paris.
• Louis XIV: The style of the high Classical period in France under the rule of Louis XIV (1643-1715) in architecture, decoration, and furniture, culminating in the building of Versailles.
• Louis XV: The Classical and Rococo style in France under the rule of Louis XV (1715-1774) in architecture, decoration, and furniture.
• Louis XVI: The later Rococo and classicist phase of the 18th century in France under the rule of Louis XVI (1774-1792), terminated by the French Revolution.
• Lunel Uni: One of the many varieties of “Notre Dame” marbles quarried in northern France. Luel Uni Clair is brownish gray with occasional small fossils and is streaked with very fine grayish white calcite veins. Lunel Uni Fonce has like characteristics but larger and more numerous fossils on a much darker brown.
• mairie: In France, the offices of the chief official of a city.
• maison dieu: Early French term for a hospital.
• mansarde: In French, a dormer window. A term derived from mansard or mansart, the name or surname of several architects. The French term is extended to a roof lighted by such windows and to the chambers within; in this sense expressing the same idea as the English garret, a humble lodging in the roof.
• Merovingian architecture: Architecture of the first dynasty of Frankish Kings in Gaul (c.500-751/2), derived from Early Christian Roman prototypes, and usually taken to mean buildings of 5th to the end of 8th c…
• meter: Unit of linear measure in the metric system used in France and elsewhere; equivalent to 39.37 inches. 2. An apparatus for measuring the flow of liquid, gas, or electrical current. 3. The basic unit of length in the metric system, equivalent to 39.37 inches, originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the pole measured on the meridian, later as the distance between two lines on a platinum-iridium bar preserved at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris, and now as 1/299,972,458 of the distance light travels in a vacuum in one second. Abbr.: m.
• metric system: A decimal system of weights and measures, adopted first in France but now widespread and universally used in science.
• mosaique: Mosaic. 2. In rendered plans the embellishment of individual floor spaces.
• mouchette: A French limestone, a variation of Comblanchien. Of buff ground with some tendency to rose and gold veins and with characteristic fossilistic and glass speckles. 2. A daggerlike motif found especially in Gothic tracery, formed by elliptical and ogee curves.
• Neo-Grec: A French architectural style of the mid-19th century, characterized by planar wall effects and simplified Greek and Roman detail, with moldings of flattened profile and incised linear ornament.
• Néo-Grec: Neo-Classical style of the Second Empire in France (1852-70) in which Graeco-Roman, Louis-Quinze, Louis-Seize, Pompeian, Adam, Egyptian-Revival, and other motifs were disposed in a richly eclectic polychrome mélange…
• Neo-Greek: A revival of Greek forms; neo-greque in France, where a revival developed in the first half of the 19th century.
• notre dame: In French, “Our Lady”; a common dedication of French churches, and giving the popular name to more cathedrals than any other ecclesiastical title…
• nouveau: A beginner in an atelier.
• oeil de boeuf: In French, a comparatively small round or oval window; as adopted in English usage, such a window especially when treated decoratively, as in a frieze.
• oeil-de-boeuf window: An oculus, circular window, or rain-hole is a feature of Classical architecture since the 16th century. They are often denoted by their French name, oeil de boeuf, or “bull’s-eye”.
• ordonnance: French term for the proper arrangement and composition of any architectural work leaning upon traditional law.
• palafitte: French and Swiss term for a lake dwelling.
• parterre: A level and patterned garden. 2. In an American theater, sometimes the seating section under the main gallery.
• passerelle: Literally, a footbridge.
• patron: Teacher, master.
• patte d’oie: Common in French formal gardens, where three, four, or five straight paths radiated out from a central point in a park or garden, so called from its resemblance to a goose’s foot. It may have originated in town-planning schemes where roads joined in a space, e.g. Piazza del Pòpolo.
• pendill: From French word meaning “hanging.” Also the projecting and exposed lower end of a post of the overhanging upper story; common in 17th century New England houses.
• pigeonnier: A common feature of the French Colonial plantation house, which often boasted two of these roosting houses, placed symmetrically in front and back of the main residence. A typical pigeonnier was one-and-a-half or two stories high with the setting (nesting) boxes placed over a ground-floor storeroom; fancy versions featured octagonal designs. The birds were raised for both meat and fertilizer.
• place: A physical environment having particular characteristics or used for a particular purpose. 2. An open public space in a French town.
• pont: In French, a bridge; sometimes, in combination, forming the proper name of an important bridge which is not connected with the geographical name of the place.
• 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.
• post-in-the-ground: A construction method using vertical posts set directly in the ground in rows to form walls. In French Colonial regions, called poteaux-en-terre.
• pourtour: In French, a circuit; a gallery or passage allowing of movement around a central hall or the like; especially, in churches, the aisle which nearly surrounds the apse or chevet, passing along the north and south sides and curving around the east end.
• Premier style: The columniation of the early phase of French Renaissance architecture named after Francis I (1515-1547), merging Gothic elements with the full use of Italian decoration. Fontainebleau and the chateaux of the Loire, among them Chambord, are outstanding examples.
• Purism: French artistic movement (c.1918-25) linked to the Machine Aesthetic and founded by Ozenfant and Le Corbusier. It claimed Cubism was becoming concerned with mere decoration, that art needed to reflect the ‘spirit of the age’, exclude emotionalism and expression, and learn lessons inherent in the precision of machinery…
• Pyrenesse Black-and-White: A dark brownish black marble from France, with thin and broad golden veins in haphazard pattern. The veins are glasslike, and the entire mass is crazed with very fine cobweb-like veins. A marble of wide variation but consistent in color value.
• Raguer: Style of French 19th c. architecture in which Classicism, Louis-Quatorze, Italianate, Renaissance, and Gothic were promiscuously mixed. A rageur is a bad-tempered person: aspects of the Rageur style are certainly over-emphatic and outlandishly proportioned…
• Rayonnant: Descriptive of a type of French Gothic tracery which emphasized radial lines.
• Rayonnant style: The middle phase of French Gothic architecture in the 13th and 14th century, characterized by radiating lines of tracery.
• Régence: Restrained Classical style during the minority (c. 1715-23) of King Louis XV of France.
• Regency: A period of French architectural style roughly corresponding to the term of 1715-1723, when Philip of Orleans was regent; a period of transition from the style of Louis VIX to that of Louis XV. In England the term covers the architecture of more than their Regency (1811-1820); it extended from 1800 to the early years of Victoria’s reign.
• Renascence: From the French renaître (to be born again) and the Italian Rinascimento (rebirth), the term is given to the great revival of arts and letters under the influence of Classical precedents which began in 14th c. Italy and continued during the following two centuries, spreading to virtually all parts of Europe…
• ressaut: The projection or recession of one member as compared with an adjoining one.
• revetment: From Old French revestir, “to reclothe.” A wall facing or veneer consisting of panels of stone, marble, metal, or other material.
• rinceau: From Middle French, rainsel, “branch.” Ornamental work, often low relief sculpture, consisting of curvilinear intertwining leaves and branches.
• Rod of Aesculapius: Vertical shaft or torch round which two snakes are twined, common in Neo-Classical and French Empire design. An emblem of healing and medicine, it is associated with apothecaries and hospitals. It resembles a caduceus without wings.
• rond-point: French for “round point.” In French Baroque landscape design and town planning, a circular plaza on which streets converge.
• roofing tile: A building material made of fired clay, concrete, or asbestos cement; available in many configurations and types. Commonly encountered tile types include: Spanish, pantile, mission, Roman, plain, English, Greek, and French.
• rubble drain: Also see French drain.
• saint chapelle: In French, a holy chapel, that is, one of especially sacred character; a term used peculiarly for those which contain some relic of great sanctity, as any one of those which relate especially to the Passion of Christ…
• sainte chapelle: In French, a holy chapel, that is, one of especially sacred character; a term used peculiarly for those which contain some relic of great sanctity, as any one of those which relate especially to the Passion of Christ…
• salle des ped perdus: A large hall forming a monumental vestibule or waiting room to smaller halls or apartments, as in courts of justice and other public buildings in France.
• salle des sas perdus: A large hall forming a monumental vestibule or waiting room to smaller halls or apartments, as in courts of justice and other public buildings in France.
• Sarrancolin: A breccia marble quarried near Sarrancolin in the French Pyrenees. The colors are widely variable, with gray, yellow, and red predominating.
• serrurerie: French term for wrought-metal work.
• singerie: Style of 17th-18th Chinoiserie, Rococo, and Régence decoration incorporating monkeys (singe (French) = monkey) wearing clothes and mimicking humans, set amidst scroll- and band-work, sometimes found with Magots.
• style empire: In French, and always pronounced in French, the style of the Napoleonic empire; an elaboration of the style of the later part of the reign of Louis XVI. In which the severest and classically inspired design of about 1780 is overlaid by rather incongruous ornamentation, and loses much of its charm. This style had, however, so brief a reign that it is impossible to judge of what is development might have been. It is the last of the naturally developed styles of Western Europe, and has been succeeded by the chaos of modern times.
• Swiss cottage: Quasi-national style of cottage which emerged in France (1778) as a mnemonic fabrique in a landscape-garden…
• tennis court: A room arranged for the ancient game of tennis, which is very nearly the French Jeu de Paume…
• tiers point: In French, the point where the two determining arcs of a pointed arch meet, the apex. The term means originally the third or culminating point of a triangle.
• Touraine style: Type of 19th c. architecture based on French Renaissance 16th c. châteaux of the Loire valley in the time of François Ier…
• Tuileries: The Paris palace of the French kings, built between 1564 and 1700.
• Versailles Palace: Iconic architectural building of the 17th century French Baroque. Among the many architects who worked at Versailles were: Louis Le Vau (1612-70), Jules Hardouin Mansart (1646-1708), and Andre Le Notre (1613-1700).

Also see Architecture Origin index.

Also see Architecture index.