Gothic Vault Roof

Vaulted ceiling look seven stories up and you ll be amazed by a central architectural feature of gothic cathedrals the vaulted ceiling which transmits the weight of the roof and walls across delicate ribs and down the heavy trunks of stone piers.

Gothic vault roof.

Gothic architecture replaced romanesque groin vaults with ribbed vaults to counteract complexities of construction and limitations that allowed it to only span square rooms. In the vault the pointed arch could be seen in three dimensions where the ribbed vaulting met in the center of the ceiling of each bay. In the case of a cathedral vault where the interior ceiling is parallel to the exterior roof line installing skylights is a simple process. The vault is a parallel series of arches used to form a roof the most common form being a cylindrical or barrel vault.

To put it simply until gothic builders revolutionized building design the weight of the roof vault fell entirely on the supporting walls. Vault in building construction a structural member consisting of an arrangement of arches usually forming a ceiling or roof. Gothic rib vault ceiling of the saint séverin church in paris interior elevation view of a gothic cathedral with rib vaulted roof highlighted. Also known as ogival vaulting ribbed vaulting developed with the need to transfer roof loads better while freeing up inner walls for tracery and glass.

However it should be noted that prototypes for the pointed arches and ribbed vaulting were seen first in late romanesque buildings. In architecture a vault french voûte from italian volta is a self supporting arched form usually of stone or brick serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. Vaults came into their greatest prominence in gothic architecture. The basic barrel form which appeared first in ancient egypt and the middle east is in effect a continuous series of arches deep enough to cover a three dimensional.

This ribbed vaulting is another distinguishing feature of gothic architecture. A vaulted ceiling is a beautiful architectural feature but its main role is that the inside of the church is protected when the roof burns down gothic cathedral vaulting seems an extraordinary achievement. Gothic rib vaulting reims cathedral begun 1221 nave a rib vault or ribbed vault is an architectural feature for covering a wide space such as a church nave composed of a framework of crossed or diagonal arched ribs.