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Arching above a side aisle roof, flying buttresses support the main vault of St. Mary's Church, in Lübeck, Germany.. The flying buttress (arc-boutant, arch buttress) is a specific form of buttress composed of an arch that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass, in order to convey to the ground the lateral forces that push a wall outwards, which are forces that arise ...
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. [1] Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic ) buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (sideways) forces arising out of inadequately braced roof structures.
The result was that the walls could be thinner and higher, and they could have large windows between the columns. With the addition of the flying buttress, the weight could be supported by curving columns outside the building, which meant that the Cathedrals could be even taller, with immense stained glass windows. [17]
The flying buttress was an essential feature of High Gothic architecture; the great height and large upper windows would have been impossible without them. Buttresses with arches apart from the walls had existed in earlier periods, but they were generally small, close to the walls, and were often hidden by the outer architecture.
The church is notable for its many large stained glass windows, decorative stone vaults, flying buttresses, rare hexagonal porch and massive Gothic spire. With a height of 274 feet (84 m) [ 6 ] to the top of the weathervane, St Mary Redcliffe is the second-tallest structure in Bristol and the sixth-tallest parish church in the country.
Before the buttresses, all of the weight of the roof pressed outward and down to the walls, and the abutments supporting them. With the flying buttress, the weight was carried by the ribs of the vault entirely outside the structure to a series of counter-supports, which were topped with stone pinnacles which gave them greater weight.
In these the buttresses run up, forming a sort of square turret, and crowned with a pyramidal cap, very much like those of the next period, the Early English. Pinnacles on the top of walls and the corner of flying buttresses. In this and the following styles, mainly in Gothic architecture, the pinnacle seems generally to have had its ...
The ribbed vaulting and flying buttresses of Gothic architecture concentrated the weight and thrust of the roof, freeing wall-space for larger clerestory fenestration. Generally, in Gothic masterpieces, the clerestory is divided into bays by the vaulting shafts that continue the same tall columns that form the arcade separating the aisles from ...