Buttress (original) (raw)

ButtressBUTT ris

A structure, usually brick or stone, built against a wall for support or reinforcement to resist the pressure of a arch or vault

Old French: "bouter" = to bear against

Commonly found in Gothic and Gothic Revivalarchitecture

Types of buttresses: Pier ... Flying ... Scroll ... Curved ...Triangular

Scroll(ed) buttresses (right illustration above) flourished in throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

See also: Church Vocabulary

Examples from Buffalo architecture:

• Left illustration above: Pier buttresses - St. Paul's Cathedral
• Pier buttresses - Darwin Martin House
• Pier buttresses - Buffalo Gas Light Company
• Pier buttresses - St. Frances de Sales RC Church
• Pier buttresses - Buffalo Seminary
• Center illustration above: Scroll buttress - Maltby House
• Scroll buttresses - Silverthorne House
• Scroll buttresses - Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Museum
• Scroll buttresses - St. Luke's Roman Catholic Church/St. Luke's Mission of Mercy
• Second Empire style (Baroque Revival) - 186 Linwood Avenue

Other examples:

• Pier buttresses - Segovia Cathedral, Spain
• Pier buttresses - Sarlat Cathedral, France
• Scroll buttress -San Francisco "painted lady"
• Scroll buttress - Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy Renaissance
• Scroll buttress - St. Roch RC Church, Paris, France
• Scroll buttresses - The Piarist Church, Cracow, Poland
• Scroll buttress -Yusupov Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia
• Wall buttress - Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy
• Curved (monumental) buttresses - Sea Monarch Condominiums, Pompano Beach, Florida
• Furniture: scroll buttress - Cathedral, Palermo, Sicily