Flying buttress

What it is

An external arch that transmits the vault's lateral thrust to a buttress set apart from the wall. It frees the wall from its load-bearing role and allows naves 30–48 m high with immense windows.

What it led to

• Rayonnant Gothic and the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, Amiens and Beauvais
• empirical structural theory passed down through the notebooks of Villard de Honnecourt
• the physical limit reached with the collapse of Beauvais (1284)

Built on

• Pointed arch and ribbed vault1140
• Pointed arch and ribbed vault
• Romanesque buttress

Made possible

• Stained glass windowc. 1100

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