Portal (architecture)

A portal is an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, especially a grand entrance to an important structure.[1] Doors, metal gates, or portcullis in the opening can be used to control entry or exit. The surface surrounding the opening may be made of simple building materials or decorated with ornamentation. The elements of a portal can include the voussoir, tympanum, an ornamented mullion or trumeau between doors, and columns with carvings of saints in the westwork of a church.

Gothic portal from Notre-Dame at Reugny, from the late 12th century, made of limestone, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)

Examples

Other uses

The term portal is also applied to the ends of a tunnel.

gollark: See, networking is awful and everything barely holds together on several levels.
gollark: WiFi is somewhat insecure because apparently the... Wi-Fi Alliance, I think? repeatedly manage to be idiots who make stupid design mistakes which don't get fixed even when people point them out prior to WPA-n, n∈ℕ standardization.
gollark: Public key.
gollark: What public key?!
gollark: ???

References
  1. Ching, Francis (1997). A Visual Dictionary of Architecture. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. ISBN 0-442-02462-2.
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