In architecture and building technique, a load bearing wall is one in which a wall of a structure bears the weight and force resting upon it, as opposed to a curtain wall which uses the strength of a sub wall and superstructure to carry the weight. In curtain walls, the facing applied is done for cosmetic reasons (the is known as a veneer, or facing material), whereas in load bearing walls the material most often used in large scale buildings was either stone, block or brick.

Load bearing walls are one of the earliest forms of construction. Depending on the type of building and the number of stories, load bearing walls are gauged to the appropriate thickness to carry the weight above it. Without doing so, it is possible that an outer wall could become unstable if the load exceeds the strength of the material used, and lead to a collapse.

With the advent of Gothic architecture, and its vast expanses of windows and high vaulted ceilings, the flying buttress had to be employed to keep the weight of the building properly distributed. Notre Dame is an example of a load bearing wall structure with flying buttresses.

The birth of the skyscraper era, and the concurrent rise of steel as a more suitable framing system, the limitations of load bearing construction in large scale buildings lead to their decline in large scale commercial structures.