ABSTRACT
If we say a building is in a particular style this implies that there are other buildings or artefacts that share similar features. Not all the buildings which comprise the group will necessarily be identical in form, for they may vary in how many characteristic features they share. Most buildings in the group will have a large number of the features that characterise the style, but not every building will have all of those features. We expect gothic cathedrals to have piers, buttresses and openings with pointed arches. Some windows are simply lancet':' with no tracery, others have plate tracery':', and yet others curvilinear tracery':'. Often there is no single physical attribute that is both necessary and sufficient for membership of a style. In other words,
we cannot say that a building is not gothic just because it does not have buttresses, or conversely that every building that utilises buttresses is gothic. C.F.A. Voysey, the arts and crafts architect of the late nineteenth century, employed buttresses in his domestic architecture and we do not call his work gothic (see Figure 6.16). Style is defined through the physical or visual characteristics of buildings. Structural elements such as columns, protective elements such as hood moulds that shield openings from the weather, and decorative features such as the carving on a moulding may all be used to identify a style.
