Glossary · M
Mansard
Also called mansard roof, comble brisé
A roof with two slopes on every side, the lower steep (often with dormers) and the upper shallow, named after François Mansart; it gains a habitable storey within the roof.
See also: Gambrel
Rules that use the word
The mansard: a storey in the roof. Break the slope of the roof on all four sides: a steep lower slope, nearly a wall, which holds a storey of rooms lit by dormers, and a shallow upper slope, often invisible from the street.
Name a roof by its slopes. Classify a roof by how its planes meet: one slope (shed), two meeting at a ridge (gable), four meeting at hips (hip, pyramid), a hip below a gable (hip-and-gable), two pitches each side (gambrel, mansard), or a curved surface (barrel, cone, dome).
Houses to a prescribed model. Give settlers free plots and privileges, but oblige them to build to the prince’s model designs, with the same height, the same eaves line and the same mansard roof, so that the streets read as continuous fronts leading to the palace.
Where it appears in the book
In the chapters The Roof.
Nearby in the glossary
Lombard band · Long gallery · Lotiform · Mandapa · Maqsura · Marche · Martyrium · Maru