Norma Desmond

Lunettes

A lunette (French lunette, "little moon") is a half-moon shaped architectural space, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be segmental, and the arch may be an arc taken from an oval. A lunette window is commonly called a half-moon window, or fanlight when bars separating its panes fan out radially. If a door is set within a round-headed arch, the space within the arch above the door, masonry or glass, is a lunette. If the door is a major access, and the lunette above is massive and deeply set, it may be called a tympanum. A lunette is also formed when a horizontal cornice transects a round-headed arch at the level of the imposts, where the arch springs. If the top of the lunette itself i… more »