| Unburnt, sun-dried brick, or a building made of such material | Adobe |
| Semicircular projection of a building, especially one at the east end of a church where the main altar is located | Apse |
| Bridgelike structure for carrying a water canal across a valley | Aqueduct |
| Low, one-storied house or small cottage | Bungalow |
| Projecting structure built to support or reinforce a wall | Buttress |
| Word from the Latin for “fortress” designating a monarch’s or nobleman’s fortified abode of the type that became important in Western Europe in the late A.D. 900s and the 1000s and played a role in the feudal system | Castle |
| Series of galleries with niches forming an underground burial place | Catacombs |
| Large, imposing church that is the principal church in a bishop’s diocese | Cathedral |
| French word for a castle or a country estate | Château |
| Structure or arrangement of evenly placed columns, such as those that enclose St. Peter’s Square in Rome | Colonnade |
| Small domelike structure on a roof | Cupola |
| Hemispherical roof—a cupola | Dome |
| Exterior face of a building | Façade |
| Load-bearing structure called an arc-boutant in French, a striking feature of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and a characteristic generally associated with Gothic architecture | Flying buttress |
| Grotesque sculpture projecting from the gutter of a building | Gargoyle |
| Style of architecture that developed in western Europe between the 12th and 16th centuries and is characterized by flying buttresses, ribbed vaulting, and high ceilings | Gothic |
| Eskimo domed house made of hard snow or ice | Igloo |
| Former U.S. President who planned, designed, and oversaw the construction of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville | Jefferson, Thomas |
| Tall tower of a mosque | Minaret |
| Main area within a church extending from the main entrance to the chancel | Nave |
| Tall, slender, 4-sided stone tower tapering to a pyramidal tip | Obelisk |
| Multi-storied Buddhist tower, each tier of which is smaller than the one on which it sits, much like a wedding cake | Pagoda |
| 20th-century American architect who designed the Louvre’s glass pyramid | Pei, I.M. |
| Huge structure with a square base and 4 sloping, triangular sides meeting at the top built as royal tombs by Egyptian pharaohs | Pyramid |
| Private chapel of the popes in Vatican City known for its paintings and frescoes by Michelangelo and Botticelli | Sistine Chapel |
| Window in a roof or ceiling | Skylight |
| Very tall building, the kind developed in the U.S. in the late 19th century and now typical in major city architecture—the world’s first such building was the 10-story office of the Home Insurance Company built in Chicago in 1885 | Skyscraper |
| Plaster or cement used to cover a wall | Stucco |
| British architect responsible for rebuilding St. Paul’s Cathedral following the 1666 London fire | Wren, Sir Christopher |
| American architect whose first distinctive buildings were homes designed in his famous “prairie style” and who later designed New York City’s Guggenheim Museum | Wright, Frank Lloyd |
| Temple of Sumerian origin in the form of a pyramidal tower with each story smaller than the one below it | Ziggurat |