Why Were Stone Vaults Covered With A Timber Roof

The trees that made up the roof s wooden structure were cut down around 1160 and some sources estimate that the beams accounted for 13 000 trees or about 21 hectares of medieval forest many of.

Why were stone vaults covered with a timber roof.

For the different kinds see barrel vault fan vault groin vault rib vault sail vault. On 15 april 2019 just before 18 20 cest a structure fire broke out beneath the roof of notre dame de paris cathedral in paris. The introduction of stone vaulting below the timber roof revolutionised the appearance of major churches. Vault in building construction a structural member consisting of an arrangement of arches usually forming a ceiling or roof.

Extensive damage to the interior was prevented by its stone vaulted ceiling which largely contained the burning roof as it. 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. Still vaulted ceilings were all the rage in mid to high end custom and. The simplest kind of vault is the barrel vault also called a wagon or tunnel vault which is generally semicircular in shape.

1350 made up of halved concave masonry cones decorated with blind tracery. By the time it was extinguished the building s spire collapsed and most of its roof had been destroyed and its upper walls severely damaged. Steeper roof pitches are necessary for higher vaults while lower pitched roofs will only accommodate shallower vaults. The barrel vault is a continuous arch the length being greater than its diameter.

Gabled and flat roofs were possible with these materials. A stellar or star vault has liernes in star formation. According to architectural historians the cathedral s medieval stone vaults which served as a buffer for the fire after it burned through the wooden roof had a hand in this. With the invention of brick and cut stone for building the basic roof forms of the dome and vault appeared.

Thicker branches and timbers eventually came to be used to span a roof with clay or some other relatively impermeable substance pressed into the interstices between them. 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. Stone vaults had the advantage of being fireproof but also traditionally possessed symbolic significance as a way of marking the site of an especially sacred space such as tombs or relic chambers in crypts.