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Architecture vocabulary · Styles, History and Conservation

Dome

Meaning in architecture, with examples

/doʊm/nounCore term

In architecture, dome means: A rounded roof shaped like half a sphere, built over a circular, square or polygonal space; a masonry dome spreads its weight outwards and downwards.

In Turkish: kubbe

How it is used

Key in Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and Renaissance architecture: the Pantheon, Hagia Sophia, the Süleymaniye and Selimiye mosques and St Peter's in Rome. Domes rest on a drum or on pendentives; the small structure on top is a lantern.

Example sentences

  1. In the Selimiye Mosque, Sinan placed a single great dome over the main prayer hall.

  2. The dome rests on four arches and pendentives.

Common collocations

  • central dome
  • dome on pendentives
  • glass dome
  • dome structure
  • archA curved structure spanning an opening, built of wedge-shaped stones or bricks that press against each other and carry the load above down to the sides.
  • masonryConstruction made of separate units such as stone, brick or concrete blocks laid in mortar; also the units themselves as a building material.
  • GothicDescribing the European style of roughly the 12th to the 16th century, with pointed arches, ribbed vaults, flying buttresses and large stained-glass windows.
  • classical ordersThe systems of column design and proportion from ancient Greece and Rome: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, plus the Roman Tuscan and Composite orders.
  • roofThe top covering of a building that protects it from rain, sun and cold; it can be flat, pitched (sloping) or curved.

More terms: Styles, History and Conservation

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