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Construction of English fan vaults: The tangent plane as a surface of operation
Published in João Mascarenhas-Mateus, Ana Paula Pires, Manuel Marques Caiado, Ivo Veiga, History of Construction Cultures, 2021
The construction of fan vaults is one of the most striking developments of Perpendicular Gothic and a uniquely English phenomenon, as no comparable examples were built elsewhere in Europe. The earliest fan vaults were erected in the second half of the 14th century in the west of England, possibly as early as c.1351–64 in the cloister of Gloucester Cathedral (Figure 1). Several other examples were constructed well into the 16th century. This form of vaulting was probably a direct evolution of the lierne vaults and brought together many of the constructive innovations of the stonemasons of the West Country. The most distinctive visual feature of a fan vault is the geometry of its intrados, shaped as four trumpets each placed in the corners of a quadrangular bay, with a flat spandrel covering the central space defined by the upper circular boundaries of the fans. The surface of the fan is a conoid generated by the rotation of an arch around its vertical axis; this can also be described as the inner half of a torus. These surfaces have a double curvature and are extremely difficult to carve in stone. At the same time, the multiplication of the lierne ribs makes it inconvenient to build panels independent from the ribs, which were often carved together in the same panel that constituted the shell. From their inception, fan vaults involved a return to the vault in jointed masonry, while the Gothic binary system of construction based on ribs and panels was largely renounced (Palacios 2009). For fan vaults to be constructed, it was essential that each block be drawn and cut according to three-dimensional geometry.
DEM Analysis of the Mechanical Role of Backfill of Jointed Masonry Fan Vaults: Results of Virtual Experiments
Published in International Journal of Architectural Heritage, 2022
A fan vault is a form of vault used in English Gothic architecture. According to Leedy (1980), fan vaults were peculiar and developed in England due to the manner in which English ribbed vaults were constructed. Howard (1911) defined that a vault whose ribs are all of the same curvature and spaced at equal angles with one another can be considered as a true fan vault (Figure 1). Fan vault ribs are bounded by a semi-circular rib. The assembled ribs are shaped like an inverted concave cone. The fan vault was an extraordinarily pragmatic English innovation in Gothic churches, which had never been seen before.