Building Type

Sacred structures classified by their overall built form rather than by any single ornamental part: stupa, mosque, synagogue, cathedral, temple mandir and the like, each entered as a type of whole building a tradition raises. A building type carries its own plan and function, a stupa is a solid reliquary mound and a mosque an open hall oriented to prayer, and the type persists across the many individual buildings raised to it. This grouping sits alongside the architectural elements below it, which are the parts, a dome or a minaret, rather than the whole.