Hanging arches are an architectural motif of arches that appear to float without any pier or column beneath them. At their foot the arches do not spring from a support running down to the floor, but from a corbel or console high in the wall or on the vault. As a result the arches seem, as it were, to hang downward.
Features
Hanging arches are chiefly a decorative and spatial element:
- No continuous support — the arch does not rest on a pier running down to the floor, but on a console or corbel
- Floating impression — the arches suggest that they hang freely in space
- Richly worked — often fitted with tracery, hanging keystones, or ornamental motifs
- Combined with vaults — hanging arches often appear together with pendant vaults and fan vaults
Applications
Hanging arches are found mainly in ecclesiastical and prestigious buildings:
- Gothic churches and cathedrals — as part of richly decorated vaults and walls
- English Perpendicular style — where the motif was developed to great heights
- Neo-Gothic — in 19th-century churches and buildings that imitate the Gothic
- Restoration — in the repair of monumental masonry and stonework
The motif is related to the pendant vault, in which ribs and keystones likewise seem to float. In most cases the floating impression is chiefly aesthetic: the actual forces are still carried through the structure to the walls and buttresses.
Related terms
- Arch
- Pendant vault
- Architectural orders
- Corbel
- Vault
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