Vault (architecture)
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architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...
, a vault (French ''voûte'', from Italian ''volta'') is a self-supporting
arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...
ed form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while rings of voussoirs are constructed and the rings placed in position. Until the topmost voussoir, the keystone, is positioned, the vault is not self-supporting. Where timber is easily obtained, this temporary support is provided by centering consisting of a framed
truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as Beam (structure), beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so ...
with a semicircular or segmental head, which supports the voussoirs until the ring of the whole arch is completed. The Mycenaeans (ca. 18001050 BC) were known for their tholos tombs, also called beehive tombs, which were underground structures with conical vaults. This type of vault is one of the earliest evidences of curved brick architecture without the use of stone arches, and its construction represented an innovative technique for covering circular spaces.


Vault types

Corbelled vaults, also called false vaults, with horizontally joined layers of stone have been documented since prehistoric times; in the 14th century BC from
Mycenae Mycenae ( ; ; or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines, Greece, Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos, Peloponnese, Argos; and sou ...
. They were built regionally until modern times. The real vault construction with radially joined stones was already known to the Egyptians and Assyrians and was introduced into the building practice of the West by the Etruscans. The Romans in particular developed vault construction further and built barrel, cross and dome vaults. Some outstanding examples have survived in Rome, e.g. the Pantheon and the Basilica of Maxentius. Brick vaults have been used in Egypt since the early 3rd millennium BC. widely used and from the end of the 8th century B.C. Keystone vaults were built. However, monumental temple buildings of the pharaonic culture in the Nile Valley did not use vaults, since even the huge portals with widths of more than 7 meters were spanned with cut stone beams.


Dome

Amongst the earliest known examples of any form of vaulting is to be found in the
Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
village of Khirokitia on
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. Dating from BCE, the circular buildings supported beehive shaped corbel domed vaults of unfired mud-bricks and also represent the first evidence for settlements with an upper floor. Similar beehive tombs, called ''tholoi'', exist in
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and Northern
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. Their construction differs from that at Khirokitia in that most appear partially buried and make provision for a dromos entry. The inclusion of domes, however, represents a wider sense of the word vault. The distinction between the two is that a vault is essentially an
arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...
which is extruded into the third dimension, whereas a dome is an arch revolved around its vertical axis.


Pitched brick barrel vault

Pitched-brick vaults are named for their construction, the bricks are installed vertically (not radially) and are leaning (pitched) at an angle: This allows their construction to be completed without the use of centering. Examples have been found in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia dating to the 2nd and 3rd millennium BCE,Lynne C. Lancaster, "Early Examples of So-Called Pitched Brick Barrel Vaulting in Roman Greece and Asia Minor: A Question of Origin and Intention" which were set in gypsum mortar.


Barrel vault

A barrel vault is the simplest form of a vault, semi-circular in cross-section, and resembles a barrel or tunnel cut lengthwise in half. The effect is that of a structure composed of continuous semicircular or pointed sections. The earliest known examples of barrel vaults were built by the
Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...
ians, possibly under the ziggurat at Nippur in
Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...
, which was built of fired
brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...
s cemented with
clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...
mortar. The earliest barrel vaults in
ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
are thought to be those in the granaries built by the 19th dynasty Pharaoh
Ramesses II Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...
, the ruins of which are behind the Ramesseum, at Thebes. The span was and the lower part of the arch was built in horizontal courses, up to about one-third of the height, and the rings above were inclined back at a slight angle, so that the bricks of each ring, laid flatwise, adhered till the ring was completed, no centering of any kind being required; the vault thus formed was elliptic in section, arising from the method of its construction. A similar system of construction was employed for the vault over the great hall at
Ctesiphon Ctesiphon ( ; , ''Tyspwn'' or ''Tysfwn''; ; , ; Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Ctesiphon — ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified July 28, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/58.) was an ancient city in modern Iraq, on the eastern ba ...
, where the material employed was fired bricks or tiles of great dimensions, cemented with mortar; but the span was close upon , and the thickness of the vault was nearly at the top, there being four rings of brickwork.
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
n palaces used pitched-brick vaults, made with sun-dried mudbricks, for gates, subterranean graves and drains. During the reign of king
Sennacherib Sennacherib ( or , meaning "Sin (mythology), Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705BC until his assassination in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous A ...
they were used to construct aqueducts, such as those at Jerwan. In the provincial city Dūr-Katlimmu they were used to created vaulted platforms. The tradition of their erection, however, would seem to have been handed down to their successors in
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
, viz. to the Sassanians, who in their palaces in
Sarvestan Sarvestan () is a city in the Central District of Sarvestan County, Fars province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. The city is southeast of Shiraz, the capital of Fars province. Many tropical and sub-trop ...
and Firouzabad built domes of similar form to those shown in the Nimrud sculptures, the chief difference being that, constructed in rubble stone and cemented with mortar, they still exist, though probably abandoned on the
Islamic Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
invasion in the 7th century.


Groin vaults

A groin vault is formed by the intersection of two barrel vaults at right angles, resulting in the formation of angles or groins along the lines of transition between the webs. In these bays the longer transverse arches are semi-circular, as are the shorter longitudinal arches. The curvatures of these bounding arches were apparently used as the basis for the web centrings, which was created in the form of two intersecting tunnels as though each web was an arch projected horizontally in three dimensions. The earliest example is thought to be over a small hall at Pergamum, in
Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
, but its first employment over halls of great dimensions is due to the Romans. When two semicircular barrel vaults of the same diameter cross one another their intersection (a true ellipse) is known as a groin vault, down which the thrust of the vault is carried to the cross walls; if a series of two or more barrel vaults intersect one another, the weight is carried on to the piers at their intersection and the thrust is transmitted to the outer cross walls; thus in the Roman reservoir at Baiae, known as the '' Piscina Mirabilis'', a series of five aisles with semicircular barrel vaults are intersected by twelve cross aisles, the vaults being carried on 48 piers and thick external walls. The width of these aisles being only about there was no great difficulty in the construction of these vaults, but in the Roman
Baths of Caracalla The Baths of Caracalla () in Rome, Italy, were the city's second largest Ancient Rome, Roman public baths, or ''thermae'', after the Baths of Diocletian. The baths were likely built between AD 212 (or 211) and 216/217, during the reigns of empero ...
the tepidarium had a span of , more than twice that of an English
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, so that its construction both from the statical and economical point of view was of the greatest importance. The researches of M. Choisy (''L'Art de bâtir chez les Romains''), based on a minute examination of those portions of the vaults which still remain ''in situ'', have shown that, on a comparatively slight centering, consisting of trusses placed about apart and covered with planks laid from truss to truss, were laid – to begin with – two layers of the Roman brick (measuring nearly square and 2 in. thick); on these and on the trusses transverse rings of brick were built with longitudinal ties at intervals; on the brick layers and embedding the rings and cross ties
concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...
was thrown in horizontal layers, the haunches being filled in solid, and the surface sloped on either side and covered over with a tile roof of low pitch laid direct on the concrete. The rings relieved the centering from the weight imposed, and the two layers of bricks carried the concrete till it had set. As the walls carrying these vaults were also built in concrete with occasional bond courses of brick, the whole structure was homogeneous. One of the important ingredients of the mortar was a volcanic deposit found near Rome, known as
pozzolana Pozzolana or pozzuolana ( , ), also known as pozzolanic ash (), is a natural siliceous or siliceous- aluminous material which reacts with calcium hydroxide in the presence of water at room temperature (cf. pozzolanic reaction). In this reaction ...
, which, when the concrete had set, not only made the concrete as solid as the rock itself, but to a certain extent neutralized the thrust of the vaults, which formed shells equivalent to that of a metal lid; the Romans, however, do not seem to have recognized the value of this pozzolana mixture, for they otherwise provided amply for the counteracting of any thrust which might exist by the erection of cross walls and buttresses. In the tepidaria of the Thermae and in the basilica of Constantine, in order to bring the thrust well within the walls, the main barrel vault of the hall was brought forward on each side and rested on detached columns, which constituted the principal architectural decoration. In cases where the cross vaults intersecting were not of the same span as those of the main vault, the arches were either stilted so that their soffits might be of the same height, or they formed smaller intersections in the lower part of the vault; in both of these cases, however, the intersections or groins were twisted, for which it was very difficult to form a centering, and, moreover, they were of disagreeable effect: though every attempt was made to mask this in the decoration of the vault by panels and reliefs modelled in
stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...
.


Rib vault

A rib vault is one in which all of the groins are covered by ribs or diagonal ribs in the form of segmental arches. Their curvatures are defined by the bounding arches. Whilst the transverse arches retain the same semi-circular profile as their groin-vaulted counterparts, the longitudinal arches are pointed with both arcs having their centres on the impost line. This allows the latter to correspond more closely to the curvatures of the diagonal ribs, producing a straight tunnel running from east to west. Reference has been made to the rib vault in Roman work, where the intersecting barrel vaults were not of the same diameter. Their construction must at all times have been somewhat difficult, but where the barrel vaulting was carried round over the
choir A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...
aisle An aisle is a linear space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, in buildings such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parliaments, courtrooms, ...
and was intersected (as in St Bartholomew-the-Great in Smithfield, London) by semicones instead of cylinders, it became worse and the groins more complicated. This would seem to have led to a change of system and to the introduction of a new feature, which completely revolutionized the construction of the vault. Hitherto the intersecting features were geometrical surfaces, of which the diagonal groins were the intersections, elliptical in form, generally weak in construction and often twisting. The medieval builder reversed the process, and set up the diagonal ribs first, which were utilized as permanent centres, and on these he carried his vault or web, which henceforward took its shape from the ribs. Instead of the elliptical curve which was given by the intersection of two semicircular barrel vaults, or cylinders, he employed the semicircular arch for the diagonal ribs; this, however, raised the centre of the square bay vaulted above the level of the transverse arches and of the wall ribs, and thus gave the appearance of a dome to the vault, such as may be seen in the nave of Sant'Ambrogio, Florence. To meet this, at first the transverse and wall ribs were stilted, or the upper part of their arches was raised, as in the Abbaye-aux-Hommes at
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, and the ''Abbey of Lessay'', in
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. The problem was ultimately solved by the introduction of the pointed arch for the transverse and wall ribs – the pointed arch had long been known and employed, on account of its much greater strength and of the less thrust it exerted on the walls. When employed for the ribs of a vault, however narrow the span might be, by adopting a pointed arch, its summit could be made to range in height with the diagonal rib; and, moreover, when utilized for the ribs of the annular vault, as in the aisle round the apsidal termination of the choir, it was not necessary that the half ribs on the outer side should be in the same plane as those of the inner side; for when the opposite ribs met in the centre of the annular vault, the thrust was equally transmitted from one to the other, and being already a broken arch the change of its direction was not noticeable. The first introduction of the pointed arch rib took place at Cefalù Cathedral and pre-dated the abbey of Saint-Denis. Whilst the pointed rib-arch is often seen as an identifier for Gothic architecture, Cefalù is a Romanesque cathedral whose masons experimented with the possibility of Gothic rib-arches before it was widely adopted by western church architecture. Besides Cefalù Cathedral, the introduction of the pointed arch rib would seem to have taken place in the choir aisles of the abbey of Saint-Denis, near
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, built by the abbot Suger in 1135. It was in the church at Vezelay (1140) that it was extended to the square bay of the porch. As has been pointed out, the aisles had already in the early Christian churches been covered over with groined vaults, the only advance made in the later developments being the introduction of transverse ribs' dividing the bays into square compartments. In the 12th century the first attempts were made to vault over the naves, which were twice the width of the aisles, so it became necessary to include two bays of the aisles to form one rectangular bay in the nave (although this is often mistaken as square). It followed that every alternate
pier A pier is a raised structure that rises above a body of water and usually juts out from its shore, typically supported by piling, piles or column, pillars, and provides above-water access to offshore areas. Frequent pier uses include fishing, b ...
served no purpose, so far as the support of the nave vault was concerned, and this would seem to have suggested an alternative to provide a supplementary rib across the church and between the transverse ribs. This resulted in what is known as a sexpartite, or six-celled vault, of which one of the earliest examples is found in the '' Abbaye-aux-Hommes'' at
Caen Caen (; ; ) is a Communes of France, commune inland from the northwestern coast of France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Calvados (department), Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inha ...
. This church, built by William the Conqueror, was originally constructed to carry a timber roof only, but nearly a century later the upper part of the nave walls were partly rebuilt, in order that it might be covered with a vault. The immense size, however, of the square vault over the nave necessitated some additional support, so that an intermediate rib was thrown across the church, dividing the square compartment into six cells, and called the sexpartite vault The intermediate rib, however, had the disadvantage of partially obscuring one side of the
clerestory A clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey; from Old French ''cler estor'') is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye-level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, a ''clerestory' ...
windows, and it threw unequal weights on the alternate piers, so that in the cathedral of Soissons (1205) a quadripartite or four-celled vault was introduced, the width of each bay being half the span of the nave, and corresponding therefore with the aisle piers. To this there are some exceptions, in Sant' Ambrogio, Milan, and San Michele,
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(the original vault), and in the cathedrals of
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,
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and
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, where the quadripartite vaults are nearly square, the intermediate piers of the aisles being of much smaller dimensions. In England sexpartite vaults exist at
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(1175) (set out by William of Sens), Rochester (1200), Lincoln (1215), Durham (east
transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...
), and ''St. Faith's chapel'', Westminster Abbey. In the earlier stage of rib vaulting, the arched ribs consisted of independent or separate voussoirs down to the springing; the difficulty, however, of working the ribs separately led to two other important changes: (1) the lower part of the transverse diagonal and wall ribs were all worked out of one stone; and (2) the lower horizontal, constituting what is known as the tas-de-charge or solid
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. The tas-de-charge, or solid springer, had two advantages: (1) it enabled the stone courses to run straight through the wall, so as to bond the whole together much better; and (2) it lessened the span of the vault, which then required a centering of smaller dimensions. As soon as the ribs were completed, the web or stone shell of the vault was laid on them. In some English work each course of stone was of uniform height from one side to the other; but, as the diagonal rib was longer than either the transverse or wall rib, the courses dipped towards the former, and at the apex of the vault were cut to fit one another. In the early English Gothic period, in consequence of the great span of the vault and the very slight rise or curvature of the web, it was thought better to simplify the construction of the web by introducing intermediate ribs between the wall rib and the diagonal rib and between the diagonal and the transverse ribs; and in order to meet the thrust of these intermediate ribs a ridge rib was required, and the prolongation of this rib to the wall rib hid the junction of the web at the summit, which was not always very sightly, and constituted the ridge rib. In France, on the other hand, the web courses were always laid horizontally, and they are therefore of unequal height, increasing towards the diagonal rib. Each course also was given a slight rise in the centre, so as to increase its strength; this enabled the French masons to dispense with the intermediate rib, which was not introduced by them till the 15th century, and then more as a decorative than a constructive feature, as the domical form given to the French web rendered unnecessary the ridge rib, which, with some few exceptions, exists only in England. In both English and French vaulting centering was rarely required for the building of the web, a template (Fr. ''cerce'') being employed to support the stones of each ring until it was complete. In Italy, Germany and Spain the French method of building the web was adopted, with horizontal courses and a domical form. Sometimes, in the case of comparatively narrow compartments, and more especially in clerestories, the wall rib was stilted, and this caused a peculiar twisting of the web, where the springing of the wall rib is at K: to these twisted surfaces the term ploughshare vaulting is given. One of the earliest examples of the introduction of the intermediate rib is found in the nave of
Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral, also called Lincoln Minster, and formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln, is a Church of England cathedral in Lincoln, England, Lincoln, England. It is the seat of the bishop of Lincoln and is the Mo ...
, and there the ridge rib is not carried to the wall rib. It was soon found, however, that the construction of the web was much facilitated by additional ribs, and consequently there was a tendency to increase their number, so that in the nave of
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Cathedral three intermediate ribs were provided between the wall rib and the diagonal rib. In order to mask the junction of the various ribs, their intersections were ornamented with richly carved bosses, and this practice increased on the introduction of another short rib, known as the lierne, a term in France given to the ridge rib. Lierne ribs are short ribs crossing between the main ribs, and were employed chiefly as decorative features, as, for instance, in the ''Liebfrauenkirche'' (1482) of
Mühlacker Mühlacker is a town in the eastern part of the Enz (district), Enz district of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Mühlacker station has direct rail connections with Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, Pforzheim and the Northern Black Forest. Mühlhau ...
, Germany. One of the best examples of Lierne ribs exists in the vault of the
oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an ...
of
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. The tendency to increase the number of ribs led to singular results in some cases, as in the choir of Gloucester Cathedral, where the ordinary diagonal ribs become mere ornamental mouldings on the surface of an intersected pointed barrel vault, and again in the cloisters, where the introduction of the fan vault, forming a concave-sided conoid, returned to the principles of the Roman geometrical vault. This is further shown in the construction of these fan vaults, for although in the earliest examples each of the ribs above the tas-de-charge was an independent feature, eventually it was found easier to carve them and the web out of the solid stone, so that the rib and web were purely decorative and had no constructional or independent functions.


Fan vault

upFan vaulting over the nave at Bath, England">Bath,_Somerset.html" ;"title="Bath Abbey, Bath, Somerset">Bath, England This form of vaulting is found in English late Gothic in which the vault is constructed as a single surface of dressed stones, with the ribs radiating from the springing point resembling a fan, and the resulting conoid forming an ornamental network of blind tracery. The fan vault would seem to have owed its origin to the employment of centerings of one curve for all the ribs, instead of having separate centerings for the transverse, diagonal wall and intermediate ribs; it was facilitated also by the introduction of the four-centred arch, because the lower portion of the arch formed part of the fan, or conoid, and the upper part could be extended at pleasure with a greater radius across the vault. These ribs were often cut from the same stones as the webs, with the entire vault being treated as a single jointed surface covered in interlocking tracery. The earliest example is perhaps the east walk of the Gloucester Cathedral">cloister at Gloucester, with its surface consisting of intricately decorated panels of stonework forming conical structures that rise from the springers of the vault. In later examples, as in King's College Chapel, Cambridge, on account of the great dimensions of the vault, it was found necessary to introduce transverse ribs, which were required to give greater strength. Similar transverse ribs are found in Henry VII's chapel and in the Divinity School at
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, where a new development presented itself. One of the defects of the fan vault at Gloucester is the appearance it gives of being half sunk in the wall; to remedy this, in the two buildings just quoted, the complete conoid is detached and treated as a
pendant A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, which may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. Its name stems from the Latin word ...
.


Byzantine vaults and domes

The vault of the Basilica of Maxentius, completed by Constantine, was the last great work carried out in Rome before its fall, and two centuries pass before the next important development is found in the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) at
Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...
. It is probable that the realization of the great advance in the science of vaulting shown in this church owed something to the eastern tradition of
dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...
vaulting seen in the Assyrian domes, which are known to us only by the representations in the bas-relief from Nimrud, because in the great water cisterns in Istanbul, known as the
Basilica Cistern The Basilica Cistern, or Cisterna Basilica (, or , "Subterranean Cistern" or "Subterranean Palace"), is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Istanbul, Turkey. The cistern, located southwest of the Hagi ...
and Bin bir direk (cistern with a thousand and one columns), we find the intersecting groin vaults of the Romans already replaced by small cupolas or domes. These domes, however, are of small dimensions when compared with that projected and carried out by
Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...
in the
Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia (; ; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (; ), is a mosque and former Church (building), church serving as a major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The last of three church buildings to be successively ...
. Previous to this the greatest dome was that of the Pantheon at Rome, but this was carried on an immense wall thick, and with the exception of small niches or recesses in the thickness of the wall could not be extended, so that Justinian apparently instructed his architect to provide an immense hemicycle or
apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...
at the eastern end, a similar apse at the western end, and great arches on either side, the walls under which would be pierced with windows. Unlike the Pantheon dome, the upper portions of which are made of concrete, Byzantine domes were made of brick, which were lighter and thinner, but more vulnerable to the forces exerted onto them. The
diagram A diagram is a symbolic Depiction, representation of information using Visualization (graphics), visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on Cave painting, walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Age o ...
shows the outlines of the solution of the problem. If a hemispherical dome is cut by four vertical planes, the intersection gives four semicircular arches; if cut in addition by a horizontal plane tangent to the top of these arches, it describes a circle; that portion of the sphere which is below this circle and between the arches, forming a spherical
spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame, between the tops of two adjacent arches, or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fil ...
, is the pendentive, and its
radius In classical geometry, a radius (: radii or radiuses) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its Centre (geometry), center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The radius of a regular polygon is th ...
is equal to the
diagonal In geometry, a diagonal is a line segment joining two vertices of a polygon or polyhedron, when those vertices are not on the same edge. Informally, any sloping line is called diagonal. The word ''diagonal'' derives from the ancient Greek ...
of the square on which the four arches rest. Having obtained a circle for the base of the dome, it is not necessary that the upper portion of the dome should spring from the same level as the arches, or that its domical surface should be a continuation of that of the pendentive. The first and second dome of the Hagia Sophia apparently fell down, so that Justinian determined to raise it, possibly to give greater lightness to the structure, but mainly in order to obtain increased light for the interior of the church. This was effected by piercing it with forty windows – the effect of which, as the light streaming through these windows, gave the dome the appearance of being suspended in the air. The pendentive which carried the dome rested on four great arches, the thrust of those crossing the church being counteracted by immense buttresses which traversed the aisles, and the other two partly by smaller arches in the apse, the thrust being carried to the outer walls, and to a certain extent by the side walls which were built under the arches. From the description given by
Procopius Procopius of Caesarea (; ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; ; – 565) was a prominent Late antiquity, late antique Byzantine Greeks, Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Justinian I, Empe ...
we gather that the centering employed for the great arches consisted of a wall erected to support them during their erection. The construction of the pendentives is not known, but it is surmised that to the top of the pendentives they were built in horizontal courses of brick, projecting one over the other, the projecting angles being cut off afterwards and covered with stucco in which the mosaics were embedded; this was the method employed in the erection of the Périgordian domes, to which we shall return; these, however, were of less diameter than those of the Hagia Sophia, being only about 40 to instead of The apotheosis of
Byzantine architecture Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire, or Eastern Roman Empire, usually dated from 330 AD, when Constantine the Great established a new Roman capital in Byzantium, which became Constantinople, until the Fall of Cons ...
, in fact, was reached in Hagia Sophia, for although it formed the model on which all subsequent Byzantine churches were based, so far as their plan was concerned, no domes approaching the former in dimensions were even attempted. The principal difference in some later examples is that which took place in the form of the pendentive on which the dome was carried. Instead of the spherical spandril of Hagia Sophia, large niches were formed in the angles, as in the Mosque of Damascus, which was built by Byzantine workmen for the Al-Walid I in CE 705; these gave an octagonal base on which the hemispherical dome rested; or again, as in the Sassanian palaces of Sarvestan and Firouzabad of the 4th and 5th century, when a series of concentric arch rings, projecting one in front of the other, were built, giving also an octagonal base; each of these pendentives is known as a squinch. There is one other remarkable vault, also built by Justinian, in the Church of the Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople. The central area of this church was octagonal on plan, and the dome is divided into sixteen compartments; of these eight consist of broad flat bands rising from the centre of each of the walls, and the alternate eight are concave cells over the angles of the octagon, which externally and internally give to the roof the appearance of an umbrella.


Romanesque

Although the dome constitutes the principal characteristic of the Byzantine church, throughout Asia Minor are numerous examples in which the naves are vaulted with the semicircular barrel vault, and this is the type of vault found throughout the south of France in the 11th and 12th centuries, the only change being the occasional substitution of the pointed barrel vault, adopted not only on account of its exerting a less thrust, but because, as pointed out by Fergusson (vol. ii. p. 46), the roofing tiles were laid directly on the vault and a less amount of filling in at the top was required. The continuous thrust of the barrel vault in these cases was met either by semicircular or pointed barrel vaults on the aisles, which had only half the span of the
nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
; of this there is an interesting example in the Chapel of Saint John in the
Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic citadel and castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamle ...
– and sometimes by half-barrel vaults. The great thickness of the walls, however, required in such constructions would seem to have led to another solution of the problem of roofing over churches with incombustible material, viz. that which is found throughout Périgord and La Charente, where a series of domes carried on pendentives covered over the nave, the chief peculiarities of these domes being the fact that the arches carrying them form part of the pendentives, which are all built in horizontal courses. The intersecting and groined vault of the Romans was employed in the early Christian churches in Rome, but only over the aisles, which were comparatively of small span, but in these there was a tendency to raise the centres of these vaults, which became slightly domical; in all these cases centering was employed.


Gothic Revival and the Renaissance

One good example of the fan vault is that over the staircase leading to the hall of
Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...
, where the complete conoid is displayed in its centre carried on a central column. This vault, not built until 1640, is an example of traditional workmanship, probably in Oxford transmitted in consequence of the late vaulting of the entrance gateways to the colleges. Fan vaulting is peculiar to England, the only example approaching it in France being the pendant of the Lady-chapel at Caudebec-en-Caux, in Normandy. In France, Germany, and Spain the multiplication of ribs in the 15th century led to decorative vaults of various kinds, but with some singular modifications. Thus, in Germany, recognizing that the rib was no longer a necessary constructive feature, they cut it off abruptly, leaving a stump only; in France, on the other hand, they gave still more importance to the rib, by making it of greater depth, piercing it with tracery and hanging pendants from it, and the web became a horizontal stone paving laid on the top of these decorated vertical webs. This is the characteristic of the great Renaissance work in France and Spain; but it soon gave way to Italian influence, when the construction of vaults reverted to the geometrical surfaces of the Romans, without, however, always that economy in centering to which they had attached so much importance, and more especially in small structures. In large vaults, where it constituted an important expense, the chief boast of some of the most eminent architects has been that centering was dispensed with, as in the case of the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore in
Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...
, built by Filippo Brunelleschi, and Ferguson cites as an example the great dome of the church at Mousta in
Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...
, erected in the first half of the 19th century, which was built entirely without centering of any kind.


Vaulting and faux-vaulting in the Renaissance and after

It is important to note that whereas Roman vaults, like that of the Pantheon, and
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
vaults, like that at
Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia (; ; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (; ), is a mosque and former Church (building), church serving as a major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The last of three church buildings to be successively ...
, were not protected from above (i.e. the vault from the inside was the same that one saw from the outside), the European architects of the Middle Ages protected their vaults with wooden roofs. In other words, one will not see a Gothic vault from the outside. The reasons for this development are hypothetical, but the fact that the roofed
basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...
form preceded the era when vaults begin to be made is certainly to be taken into consideration. In other words, the traditional image of a roof took precedence over the vault. The separation between interior and exterior – and between structure and image – was to be developed very purposefully in the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
and beyond, especially once the
dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...
became reinstated in the Western tradition as a key element in church design.
Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...
's dome for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, as redesigned between 1585 and 1590 by Giacomo della Porta, for example, consists of two domes of which, however, only the inner is structural. Baltasar Neumann, in his
baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
churches, perfected light-weight plaster vaults supported by wooden frames. These vaults, which exerted no lateral pressures, were perfectly suited for elaborate ceiling frescoes. In
St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...
in London there is a highly complex system of vaults and faux-vaults. The dome that one sees from the outside is not a vault, but a relatively light-weight wooden-framed structure resting on an invisible – and for its age highly original –
catenary In physics and geometry, a catenary ( , ) is the curve that an idealized hanging chain or wire rope, cable assumes under its own weight when supported only at its ends in a uniform gravitational field. The catenary curve has a U-like shape, ...
vault of brick, below which is another dome, (the dome that one sees from the inside), but of plaster supported by a wood frame. From the inside, one can easily assume that one is looking at the same vault that one sees from the outside.


India

There are two distinctive "other ribbed vaults" (called "Karbandi" in Persian) in India which form no part of the development of European vaults, but have some unusual features; one carries the central dome of the Jumma Musjid at Bijapur (A.D. 1559), and the other is Gol Gumbaz, the tomb of Muhammad Adil Shah II (1626–1660) in the same town. The vault of the latter was constructed over a hall square, to carry a hemispherical dome. The ribs, instead of being carried across the angles only, thus giving an octagonal base for the dome, are carried across to the further pier of the octagon and consequently intersect one another, reducing the central opening to in diameter, and, by the weight of the masonry they carry, serving as counterpoise to the thrust of the dome, which is set back so as to leave a passage about wide round the interior. The internal diameter of the dome is , its height and the ribs struck from four centres have their springing from the floor of the hall. The Jumma Musjid dome was of smaller dimensions, on a square of with a diameter of , and was carried on piers only instead of immensely thick walls as in the tomb; but any thrust which might exist was counteracted by its transmission across aisles to the outer wall.


Islamic architecture

The Muqarnas is a form of vaulting common in
Islamic architecture Islamic architecture comprises the architectural styles of buildings associated with Islam. It encompasses both Secularity, secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. The Muslim world, Islamic world encompasse ...
.


Modern vaults


Hyperbolic paraboloids

The 20th century saw great advances in
reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...
design. The advent of shell construction and the better mathematical understanding of hyperbolic paraboloids allowed very thin, strong vaults to be constructed with previously unseen shapes. The vaults in the
Church of Saint Sava The Church of Saint Sava ( sr-Cyrl, Храм Светог Саве, Hram Svetog Save, lit='The Temple of Saint Sava') is a 79 m high Serbian Orthodox church, which sits on the Vračar plateau in Belgrade, Serbia. It was planned as the bishopric ...
are made of prefabricated concrete boxes. They were built on the ground and lifted to 40 m on chains.


Vegetal vault

When made by plants or trees, either artificially or grown on purpose by humans, structures of this type are called tree tunnels.


See also


References


Citations


Sources

* Copplestone, Trewin. (ed). (1963). ''World architecture – An illustrated history.'' Hamlyn, London. *


Further reading


Block, Philippe, (2005) ''Equilibrium Systems, studies in masonry structure.''
* Severy, Ching, Francis D. K. (1995). A ''Visual Dictionary of Architecture''. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company. p. 262.


External links


Documentation on Arches, Domes and Vaults on the Auroville Earth Institute websiteTracing the past: 3D analysis of medieval vaults
a talk for the British Archaeological Association by Dr Alex Buchanan, Dr James Hillson, and Dr Nick Webb {{Authority control Arches and vaults Ceilings