Illustrated Architecture Dictionary ........................... Illustrated FURNITURE Glossary

Pediment
PED a ment

Architecture

A triangular gable across a portico, door or window; any similar triangular decorative piece over a doorway, fireplace, etc.

From the Latin "pedare" which means "to support"

Raking cornices: the sloping edges of a pediment

Tympanum: the space inside the pediment. It is is ideal for bold sculpture, as in Greek temples.

Broken pediment: a pediment open or broken at the apex, base or both, and the gap often filled with an urn, cartouche, or other ornament.

Segmental pediment: a round pediment

Some Classical pediments are round or swan's neck

• On doors, unbroken pediments are found in Colonial Revival, Georgian Revival, Neoclassical, Italianate, Italian Renaissance Revival, Beaux Arts Classical, Greek Revival (triangular only) styles
  
  
• On windows, unbroken pediments are found in Colonial Revival, Georgian Revival, Neoclassical, Italianate, Italian Renaissance Revival, Beaux Arts styles
  
  
• On windows, broken pediments are found in Colonial Revival, Georgian Revival, Neoclassical, Queen Anne styles
  
  
• In Renaissance architecture, used for any roof end, whether triangular, broken, or rounded
  
  
• In Gothic architecture, pediments are known as gables

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Furniture

Triangular or arched cresting [above a building or doorway or] on a piece of furniture.

Called a broken pediment when sides do not converge at an apex.

A bonnet top is the furniture equivalent of a swan's neck pediemnt

An architectural term adopted by cabinet makers to describe a triangular or shaped (as the swan necked) feature placed above the cornice of a bookcase, cabinet, tallboy, or longcase clock.

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Examples from Buffalo:

• Illustration above: Title Guarantee Building
  
  
• 135 Linwood Avenue
  
  
• 1036 Broadway
  
  
• Albright-Knox Art Gallery
  
  
• 144 Chapin Pkwy.
  
  
• 440 Linwood Ave.
  
  
• 443 Linwood Ave.
  
  
• 455 Linwood Ave.
  
  
• 18 St. John's Place
  
  
• Furniture: Chair, Ansley Wilcox Mansion / Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site
  
  
• Furniture: Mirror, Horace Reed House
  
  
• Furniture: Colonial Revival (Federal) bookcase - Old Editions Book Shop and Café
  
  
• Furniture: Broken pediment
  
  
• Furniture: Bonnet top
  
  
• Furniture: Round/segmental

Other examples:

• Athenian Treasury, Delphi, Greece
  
  
• Pedlar People Sheetmetal Building Material Catalog: Rounded Pediment, Canada
  
  
• Furniture: Bonnet top with rosettes and three urn and flame finials. Eastern Massachusetts, probably Marblehead, ca. 1780. Mahogany; white pine secondary. Bonnet top with rosettes and three urn and flame finials. Willow mount with bail handle. On display in 2003 at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum ..... ENTIRE CHEST ..... ADDITIONAL DETAIL - Bombé bas
  
  
• Furniture: Looking glass with phoenix - Cedar Grove House Museum, Philadelphia