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G

gable: A gable is the triangle formed by a sloping roof. A building may be front-gabled or side-gabled or cross-gabled.
gambrel roof:  A roof that has a double slope.   The lower slope is steeper and longer than the upper one.
gargoyle:  A spout usually carved in the shape of an animal or demon, and connected to a gutter for throwing rain water from the roof of a building. 
gazebo:  A small summerhouse or pavilion with a view, or a belvedere on the of a house.
Georgian style:  The style of the 18th century, especially from the reign of King George I who ascended the throne in 1711, until the American Revolution (King George III). Georgian was a stately, symmetrical style that dominated in Great Britain and Ireland and influenced building styles in the American colonies.  Characterized by its proportion and balance; Georgian designs usually lay within the Classical orders of architecture and employed a decorative vocabulary derived from ancient Rome or Greece. The most common building materials used are brick or stone. Commonly used colors were red, tan, or white. However, modern day Georgian style homes use a variety of colors.
girders: Crossbeams that support floor joists.
Gothic style:  Use of pointed arches (not semi-circular or restricted to two arches per vault) and ribbing along the intersections of all arches.  High gothic architecture included the use of the flying buttresses that were extensions of ribs from interior vaults to the outside, connecting downward to the floor level to complete the skeletal structure.
Gothic Revival style:  An architectural style that began in the 1740s in England characterized by strong associational values of religion and nature.  A Victorian style that borrowed details from Gothic cathedrals and other medieval architecture. In the early twentieth century Gothic Revival ideas were applied to modern skyscrapers. Twentieth Century Gothic Revival buildings are often called Neo-Gothic.
Greek style:  A post-and-lintel system (roof support design).  Colonnade porticos (entry ways) and roof detail including cornice surrounding the pediment on either end of the building length.  Interior walls spanning the length of the building segment into rooms and provide roof support.  Highlights: columns, capitals, cornices and pediments in a grid system.
Greek Revival style:  Highlights include: pediment gable; symmetrical shape; heavy cornice; wide, plain frieze; bold, simple moldings.
groin: A roof with sharp edges at intersection of cross-vaults.
ground plan: A ground plan shows the basic outlined shape of a building and, usually, the outlines of other interior and exterior features.
gutta:  From the Latin guttae, “drops”.  A small water-repelling, cone-shaped projection used in the architrave of the Doric order in classical architecture.
gutter:  A metal or plastic pipe that collects water off the eave.

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