Transverse Arches in Spanish Ribless Vaults
- PDF / 5,693,011 Bytes
- 21 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 37 Downloads / 170 Views
Transverse Arches in Spanish Ribless Vaults Pablo Navarro Camallonga1 Accepted: 12 September 2020 © Kim Williams Books, Turin 2020
Abstract This article selects Spanish ribless vaults as the object of study and presents new research findings derived from the analysis of formal aspects. Although these vaults have been studied in depth, a notably important question remains that substantially modifies the design proposed, as well as their stereotomy and construction. In particular, the analysis of so-called transverse joints should be conducted in parallel but not entirely so. This aspect implies that relevant trace and construction hypotheses should be more nuanced and, in certain cases, simplified. In other words, this will allow an even closer approach to these vaults and their architectural processes.
Introduction Spanish ribless vaults are an extremely distinct architectural type resulting from the experiences of stonemasons in the late Gothic period. These architectural examples of stonework, located mainly in the old kingdom of Aragon (specifically in Valencia, except for specific examples in Assier, France), were built between 1440 and 1550 and presented a new architectural system, which replaced Gothic ribs with groins (thus reformulating the very concept of Gothic, regarded as an architectural system). Moreover, they are different from the classical groined vaults, geometrically generated by the intersection of two cylinders. These works have been the subject of many investigations in recent times. Studies have examined the complex formal, geometric, stereotomic, and construction questions posed by these vaults. The greatest problems that arise, then, are those of the architectural concept and the construction process itself. In fact, all these investigations have culminated in the formulation of graphic proposals which reasonably provide a solution to the problem of conceiving, shaping and assembling these compositions. The key to understanding these proposals, in general terms, is to * Pablo Navarro Camallonga [email protected] 1
Higher Technical School of Architecture of Valencia, Polytechnic University of Valencia, University Institute of Heritage Restoration, Valencia, Spain Vol.:(0123456789)
P. N. Camallonga
consider the groin vault as a set of sectors, each incorporating the shape of an arch. This is shown implicitly in Natividad (2010: 120) and Navarro Camallonga (2018: 131). However, this present article raises a set of new issues with these research works as the starting point: until now, all the analyses of these vaults have focused (correctly) on defining the vault and joint shapes and the possible construction process. However, the structural behaviour has hardly been studied. In addition, the following questions are important within the Gothic context: Are the structural efforts concentrated on the ribs (the groins, in this case)? Are the ribs spread across the entire surface? Is continuous analysis required, or only during the construction process?
Evolution and Shape of the Ribles
Data Loading...
