A gable is the upper part of a building’s facade, located between the roof slopes.
Depending on the roof construction, the building may have several gables, on complex roofs they may be of different shapes and sizes. For example, triangular on a simple gable roof or polygonal on a mansard roof.
In modern building, the main functions of the gable are usually the same as those of the entire wall. But sometimes the gable or pediment can be primarily a decorative element – as it came to us from ancient Greece and Rome.
In ancient times, the pediment was placed on the sides of temples, it completed the protruding part of the building (portico) or colonnade and was a more independent element, usually with a cornice at the base and with rich decoration or sculptures in the central part (tympanum).
Later, arched pediments appeared, curved, stepped, open – with a gap in the cornice along the base, broken – where the cornice has a gap at the apex. Such pediments were often placed above windows and doors.
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