Flying buttresses at Bath Abbey, Bath, England. Of the six seen here the left hand five are supporting the nave, and the right hand one is supporting the transept. Notice their cast shadows on the windows

Close-up of two flying buttresses at Bath Abbey, Bath, England. These are the right hand two buttresses of the picture above

In architecture, a flying buttress is a structural feature used to transmit the thrust of a vault across an intervening space, such as an aisle, chapel or cloister, to a buttress built outside the latter. The employment of the flying buttress meant that the load bearing walls could contain cut-outs, such as for large windows, that would otherwise seriously weaken the vault walls. Download high resolution version (1500x1084, 449 KB) Six flying buttresses at Bath Abbey, Bath, England. ... Download high resolution version (1500x1084, 449 KB) Six flying buttresses at Bath Abbey, Bath, England. ... Bath Abbey at sunset Bath Abbey is the last in a series of monastic churches built in Bath and is still in active use. ... Bath - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Ethnicity... Full descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram. ... Full descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram. ... Download high resolution version (1500x1092, 485 KB) Close-up of two flying buttresses at Bath Abbey, Bath, England. ... Download high resolution version (1500x1092, 485 KB) Close-up of two flying buttresses at Bath Abbey, Bath, England. ... Architecture (in Greek αρχή = first and τέχνη = craftsmanship) is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. ... For the land-speed record breaking car, see ThrustSSC and Thrust2 For the computer game, see Thrust (computer game) Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newtons Second Law when a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction to propel a vehicle in the opposite direction. ... In architecture, a vault is an arched structure of masonry, forming a ceiling or canopy. ... In a modern church an aisle is a row down the middle of the church with a set of pews on each side. ... A chapel is a private church, usually small and often attached to a larger institution such as a college, a hospital, a palace, or a prison. ... Cloister of Saint Trophimus, in Arles, France A cloister (from latin claustrum) is part of cathedrals and abbeys architecture. ... A buttress (and mostly concealed, a flying buttress) supporting walls at the Palace of Westminster Three different types of buttress: diagonal, on the statues plinth; an ordinary buttress supporting a flying buttress, to the right of the statue; a small ordinary buttress to the right side of the picture... In architecture and building technique, a load bearing wall is one in which a wall of a structure bears the weight and force resting upon it, as opposed to a curtain wall which uses the strength of a sub wall and superstructure to carry the weight. ...

The load is reduced on the vault wall by throwing a semi-arch across to a vertical buttress outside the building. Though employed by the Romans and in early Romanesque work, it was generally masked by other constructions or hidden under a roof, but in the 12th century it was recognized as rational construction and emphasized by the decorative accentuation of its features, as in the cathedrals of Chartres, Le Mans, Paris, Beauvais, Reims, etc. Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. ... Romanesque St. ... (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ... A cathedral is a Christian church building, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy (such as the Roman Catholic Church or the Lutheran or Anglican churches), which serves as the central church of a bishopric. ... Cathedral of Chartres, western spires The Cathedral of Chartres (Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, French: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), located in Chartres, about 50 miles from Paris, is considered the finest example in all France of the high Gothic style of architecture. ... Le Mans is a city in France, located at the Sarthe River. ... This article is about the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris. ... Beauvais is a city and commune of northern France, préfecture (capital) of the Oise département. ... Façade of the Notre-Dame de Reims The Notre-Dame de Reims (Our Lady of Rheims) is the Cathedral of Reims, where the kings of France were once crowned. ...

Sometimes, owing to the great height of the vaults, two semi-arches were thrown one above the other, and there are cases where the thrust was transmitted to two or even three buttresses across intervening spaces. As a vertical buttress, placed at a distance, possesses greater power of resistance to thrust than if attached to the wall carrying the vault, vertical buttresses as at Lincoln Cathedral and Westminster Abbey were built outside the chapterhouse to receive the thrust. All vertical buttresses are, as a rule, in addition weighted with pinnacles to give them greater power of resistance. The city of Lincoln in England has had a cathedral since the 11th century. ... The Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster (Westminster Abbey), a mainly Gothic church, on the scale of a cathedral, is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English monarchs. ... Chapterhouse is a British shoegazing band of the early 1990s, originally from Reading. ... pinnacle Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk, Ostend, Belgium A pinnacle (from Latin pinnaculum, a little feather, pinna) is an architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. ...

This technique has also been used by Canadian architect William P. Anderson to build lighthouses at the beginning of the 20th century. The Peggys Point lighthouse in Nova Scotia, Canada An aid for navigation and pilotage at sea, a lighthouse is a tower building or framework sending out light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire. ...

Construction

Information on the constructon of flying buttresses from the ThinkQuest library: "To build the flying buttress, it was first necessary to construct temporary wooden frames which are called centering. The centering would support the weight of the stones and help maintain the shape of the arch until the mortar was dry. The centering were first built on the ground by the carpenters. Once that was done, they would be hoisted into place and fastened to the piers at the end of one buttress and at the other. These acted as temporary flying buttresses until the actual stone arch was complete." [1] Introduction ThinkQuest is an international website building competition sponsored by the Oracle Education Foundation. ...

See also:

• Gothic architecture
• Cathedral architecture

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain. Notre-Dame Cathedral seen from the River Seine. ... Montreal (Canada) cathedral Cathedrals are among the most ambitious buildings ever conceived, far exceeding the size and complexity of most other constructions and often requiring many years to complete. ... Supporters contend that the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) represents, in many ways, the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...