So a particular ambivalence persists around the cornice in architecture. In terms of design and composition, it seems to be among the essential elements, like the column, wall, and beam. Yet it can also be too decorative, even artificial. These ambiguities lend the cornice a particular status. Celebrated, censured, and condemned, it emerges as a key witness to fundamental debates about architecture, both as a design problem and a cultural practice. This edition examines the cornice in all its facets.