PraiseBuildings.com: Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Architecture

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Colonial Revival

The re-use of Georgian and Colonial design in the United States toward the end of the 19th and into the 20th century.

Colonnade

A number of columns arrange in order, at intervals called intercolumniation supporting a roof and creating a walkway.

Colosseum

Any large round gathering space having a open roof. Historically, the Flavian amphitheater in Rome or any large Roman amphitheater.

Columbarium

A series of niches - either interior or exterior - intended to receive the cremated remains and be the final resting place for those remains.

Column

An upright, vertical support, with a circular cross-section used in many types of building and architectural styles from Classical times onwards. Columns were used in various ways, usually with others as a support but sometimes singularly as a monument. In classical architecture a column is usually made up of a base, shaft and capital and the diameter of the shaft is normally greater at the bottom tapering towards the top. A blocked column has alternating cylindrical portions and rectangular blocks. An applied, engaged or attached column has part of its surface attached or arising from a wall. If it is a half or demi-column, only half the column protrudes from the surface of the wall. A compound, grouped or clustered pier is a feature of Gothic architecture in which a number slender columns surround a central pier. These may be used as a decorative feature and banded at top, bottom or halfway up. This is known as annulated or banded. A type of column popular in Baroque architecture is a twisted form called the solomonic column.

Colymbethra

The room or font for administering baptisms in a Greek Orthodox church.

Confessio

The tomb of a martyr or confessor; if an altar was erected over the grave, the name was also extended to the altar and to the subterranean chamber in which stood; in later times a basilica was sometimes erected over the chamber and the entire building was known as a confession.

Confessional

A small booth furnished with a seat for a priest and with a window, screen or perture so that the penitent, who is outside in a separate section of the booth, may whisper his confession without being seen by the priest or heard by the congregation.

Console

A decorative bracket in the form of a vertical scroll, projecting from a wall to support a cornice, a door or window.

Contemporary Worship Center

Continuous Impost

In Gothic architecture, the moldings of an arch when carried down to the floor without interruption or anything to mark the impost point.

Convent

Corbel

A block which is usually made of stone, brick or wood which projects out from a surface as a support for an arch, beam, molding, parapet or statue. A projecting stone which supports a superincumbent weight.

Corinthian

The slenderest and most ornate of the three Greek orders, characterized by a bell-shaped capital with volutes and two of acanthus leaves, and with an elaborate cornice.

Corona

The overhanging vertical member of a cornice, supported by the bed moldings and crowned by the cymatium; usually with a drip to throw rainwater clear of the building.

Cornice

Any molding projection which crowns or finishes the part to which it is affixed. The third or uppermost division of an entablature resting on the frieze. An ornamental molding, usually of wood or plaster, running round the walls of a room just below the ceiling.

Coupled Columns

Columns set as close pairs with a wider intercolumnation between the pairs.

Coupled Windows

Two closely spaced windows which form a pair.

Cove Lighting

Lighting from sources which are shielded by a panel parallel to and sometimes recessed in the wall, or cornice molding and attached to the ceiling or to the upper edge of the wall and which distribute light over the wall.