Well placed ornamentation can add interest, grace, and pleasure to a building.
Gothic architecture provides a good example of the use of ornament.
The placement of ornament served structural purposes as well as providing a means of communication in a period when most people were illiterate. Pinnacles topped with finials, flying buttresses, key stones and boss stones in arches, all provided extra weight at critical points to balance the structure against earth and wind movement. Gargoyles and grotesques, crockets and molding termination stones all helped the building to shed water. Ornament, moldings and cornices were placed on buildings at critical locations, to pull the water off the building. Buildings should be designed to be outdoors, in the wind, rain and snow, and to be participants in the human fabric, contributing to the beauty of the community.