mortise and tenon

in woodworking and architecture: the tenon (projection from one piece of wood) is put into the mortise (cavity cut into in the other piece of wood) to form a “simple and strong” connection/joint.

It’s an example of something in architecture that serves a decorative as well as functional purpose. The Recentering El Pueblo blog shows some great examples and points out (with photographic evidence) that sometimes these joints are imitated, so you have what looks like a beautiful important connection holding a building together, but is in fact just facade.

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