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. Vault in building construction a structural member consisting of an arrangement of arches usually forming a ceiling or roof. 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. A vault is a self supporting ceiling built of masonry which is stable due to its form which is curved or double curved.

The dome is a hemispherical structure that can serve as a roof. 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. 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. Furthermore gothic architects replaced the round arches of the barrel vault with pointed arches which distributed the vault s weight in a more vertical direction.

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. Vaults came into their greatest prominence in gothic architecture. 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. To put it simply until gothic builders revolutionized building design the weight of the roof vault fell entirely on the supporting walls.

In the case of a cathedral vault where the interior ceiling is parallel to the exterior roof line installing skylights is a simple process. This ribbed vaulting is another distinguishing feature of gothic architecture. 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.