A cloister is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a warm southern flank, usually indicates that it is part of a monastic foundation, "forming a continuous and solid architectural barrier... that effectively separates the world of the monks from that of the serfs and workmen, whose lives and works went forward outside and around the cloister."
The cloister at Salisbury Cathedral, England
The Cloisters at Gloucester Cathedral, UK
The Bonnefont medieval garden at The Cloisters in Manhattan
The Romanesque cloister of Santo Domingo de Silos, Spain
An arcade is a succession of contiguous arches, with each arch supported by a colonnade of columns or piers. Exterior arcades are designed to provide a sheltered walkway for pedestrians; they include many loggias, but here arches are not an essential element. An arcade may feature arches on both sides of the walkway. Alternatively, a blind arcade superimposes arcading against a solid wall.
Norman blind arcade, Ely Cathedral
Arcades of the Colosseum (AD 70s) from the outside
Arcades inside the Mosque of Uqba, also known as the Great Mosque of Kairouan, in Tunisia (670). There is no vaulting; the arches are bridged by wooden beams
These arcades in Córdoba were begun in the 780s; Some are topped by beams, others by barrel vaults.
