Groin vault6/12/2023 Several of the new train stations built in the US at the beginning of the 20th century for the country’s continent-straddling network were directly inspired by Roman architectural precedents, particularly basilicas and bath complexes. Even as technology has advanced, and the form of the barrel vault has become to a large degree structurally redundant, architects consistently return to its recognisable contours as an atavistic anchor, stabilising their innovations and architectural experiments in the millennial shadow of countless precursors. ![]() Prefiguring the spatial gymnastics of the groin vault and subsequent feats where ceilings soar to span vast distances in any number of ways, this form of enclosure has managed over countless centuries and across continents to achieve a number of impressively grand spatial feats, while always retaining an inherently elemental, historically rooted clarity. Essentially a row of adjoining arches repeated to cover a given distance, allowing for the spanning of far greater distances than stone post-and-beam construction, barrel vaults are archetypal units of spatial enclosure that speak of the very beginnings of structural ingenuity. The barrel vault is the most elemental and ancient of the vaulting types, documented from as far back as 4000BC it was used by the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Nubians, and Romans.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |