Shaft (architecture)

“ The detail of this shaft is so delicate and characteristic of the whole work, that I give an engraving of a portion of it; nothing can be prettier or more graceful than the design, and the execution is admirable. The corresponding shaft in either jamb is also sculptured, but in these there is no story, the shafts being twisted with carving of foliage and figures in the alternate members. The capital of the central shaft has the figures of the Holy Trinity, with angels on either side censing ”

“ THORONET—CAPS IN CLOISTER.
simple form, consisting of plain round arches in the wall, filled in with a single solid shaft supporting two smaller round arches, and a circular eye above. The arches are absolutely without mouldings. The caps and bases of the central shafts (Fig. 126) are of very simple design—a small leaf or uncarved set-off being all that is allowed to cover the passage from round to square, and any such enrichments are most elementary, both in design and execution. ”

“ Thus the simplest provision is a mere projecting pilaster, carrying the cross ribs, the wall itself taking the place of the lateral ones. This pilaster may be converted into a shaft or a double shaft, or the rib may be amplified by a central semi-roll moulding, and the whole carried by a triple shaft or other combinations, or a corbel substituted for the pilaster or group of shafts. Thus we have vaulting reduced to a principle which, however plain, is at once artistic and constructionally good, and is susceptible of all degrees of ornamentation. ”

“ In architecture the term “shaft” is applied to the body of a column between the capital and the base. In Romanesque work shafts are occasionally octagonal, and are sometimes ornamented with the zigzag or chevron, or fluted vertically or in spirals ”

“ The Pier-arches, in early examples, are perfectly plain, and square edged, without mouldings or ornament; but more frequently they carry one or more heavy rolls on the angle of each order of the arch; and are often ornamented richly with concentric rows of chevron, billet, and other Norman ornaments.
The Vaulting or Roof-shaft is usually a semicircular shaft rising from the floor—on the face of every alternate Pier—to the springing of the vault or roof. ”

“ The Hood-moulding, resting on small and elegant heads or bosses, is an almost invariable accompaniment of arches of every description.
The Vaulting-shaft sometimes rises from the floor in front of the principal Pier,—but more usually from a corbel-shaft, resting on a large ornamental corbel, placed immediately over the pier; it consists generally of a triple cluster of small elegant shafts, with hollows between them. ”

“ Above the echinus, which is circular, like the shaft, comes the highest member—the abacus, a square stout slab of marble, which completes the capital of the column. The [95] whole is most skilfully designed to convey the idea of sturdy support, and yet to clothe the support with grace. The strong proportions of the shaft, the slight curve of its outline, the lines traced upon its surface by the channels, and even the vigorous uncompromising planting of it on the square step from which it springs, all contribute to make the column look strong. ”

“ These shafts are much larger than the others, indeed they are made up of several round mouldings twisted together each of the same size as the shaft next them. Base and capital are of course also much larger, and there is only one ring ornament, above which the twisting is reversed. All the mouldings are carved, some with spirals, some with bundles of leaves bound round by a rope, with bunches of grape-like fruit between. The twisted mouldings are carried up beyond the capitals to form a huge trefoil turning up at the top to a large and rather clumsy finial. ”

“ The height of the lower shafts, upper shafts, and wall, being severally expressed by a, b, and c, then a : c :: c : b (a being the highest) ; and diameter of shaft b is generally to the diameter of shaft a as height b is to height a, or something less, allowing for the large plinth which diminishes the apparent height of the upper shaft: and when this is their proportion of width, one shaft above is put above one below with sometimes another upper shaft interposed: but in the extreme arches a single under shaft bears two upper, proportioned as truly as the boughs of a tree ”

“ The term “baluster shaft” is given to the shaft dividing a window in Saxon architecture. In the south transept of the abbey at St Albans, England, are some of these shafts, supposed to have been taken from the old Saxon church. ”

“ In course of time, a low ridgy process is seen emerging along the outer edge of the cylindrical shaft, forming a line of light upon it and destroying its gradation. Hardly traceable at first (as on the alternate rolls of the north door of Rouen) , it grows and pushes out as gradually as a stag's horns: sharp at first on the edge; but, becoming prominent, it receives a truncation, and becomes a definite fillet on the face of the roll. ”

“ Each of these windows (see Fig. 159.) consists of two openings, divided by a central shaft. On the exterior each opening is arched, with a small semi-circular arch, cut out of one stone; but in the interior both openings are spanned by one arch. The arrangement of the shafts is peculiar, the central shaft being placed so as to be in the centre of the abacus which carries the small arches, while the side shafts are wrought upon the angles of the jambs, and do not stand in the same plane as the central shaft. The caps are Norman, of the usual cushion form, with heavy abacus ”

“ The former is given by adding to that side a pilaster of equal size with the transverse rib of the vaulting, and substituting for its front portion a demi{106}-shaft; the latter by a similar projection with the addition of two smaller shafts on its flanks. Nothing could be more perfect or more typical than this arrangement. The capitals are everywhere of the cushion type, in its simpler form; the arch-orders square, and without labels. The entire height of the wall being divided into three, the upper, or clerestory, may be said to occupy one-third ”

“ Nothing is more singular than the way in which this kind of superimposition (the only right one in the case of shafts) will shock a professed architect. He has been accustomed to see, in 387 the Renaissance designs, shaft put on the top of shaft, three or four times over, and he thinks this quite right; but the moment he is shown a properly subdivided superimposition, in which the upper shafts diminish in size and multiply in number, so that the lower pillars would balance them safely even without cement, he exclaims that it is “against law,” as if he had never seen a tree in his life. ”

“ Therefore the shaft, of whatever size, is always to be solid; and because the incrusted character of the rest of the building renders it more difficult for the shafts to clear themselves from suspicion, they must not, in this incrusted style, be in any place jointed. No shaft must ever be used but of one block; and this the more, because the permission given to the builder to have his walls and piers as ponderous as he likes, renders it quite unnecessary for him to use shafts of any fixed size. ”

“ Observe: the whole strength of this angle depends on accuracy of poise, not on breadth or strength of foundation. It is a balanced, not a propped structure: if the balance fails, it must fall instantly; if the balance is maintained, no matter how the lower 388 shaft is fastened into the ground, all will be safe. And to mark this more definitely, the great lower shaft has a different base from all the others of the façade, remarkably high in proportion to the shaft, on a circular instead of a square plinth, and without spurs, while all the other bases have spurs without exception. ”

“ Although, as we have said, it is impossible to cover the walls of a large building with color, except on the condition of dividing the stone into plates, there is always a certain appearance of meanness and niggardliness in the procedure. It is necessary that the builder should justify himself from this suspicion; and prove that it is not in mere economy or poverty, but in the real impossibility of doing otherwise, that he has sheeted his walls so thinly with the precious film. Now the shaft is exactly the portion of the edifice in which it is fittest to recover his honor in this respect. ”

“ SECTION XXXIV. LAW IV. The shafts may sometimes be independent of the construction. Exactly in proportion to the importance which the shaft assumes as a large jewel, is the diminution of its importance as a sustaining member; for the delight which we receive in its abstract bulk, and beauty of color, is altogether independent of any perception of its adaptation to mechanical necessities. Like other beautiful things in this world, its end is to be beautiful ”

“ The same thing is done in the Northern and Southern Gothic: in the porches of Abbeville and the tombs of Verona.
§ XIII. I believe there is little else to be noted of general laws of ornament respecting the wall veil. We have next to consider its concentration in the shaft.
Now the principal beauty of a shaft is its perfect proportion to its work,—its exact expression of necessary strength. If this has been truly attained, it will hardly need, in some cases hardly bear, more decoration than is given to it by its own rounding and taper curvatures ”

“ This I hold to be absolutely essential, and that barbarism begins wherever the sculpture is either so bossy, or so deeply cut, as to break the contour of the shaft, or compromise its solidity. Thus, in Plate XXI. (Appendix 8) , the richly sculptured shaft of the lower story has lost its dignity and definite function, and become a shapeless mass, injurious to the symmetry of the building, though of some value as adding to its imaginative and fantastic character. Had all the shafts been like it, the façade would have been entirely spoiled ”

“ We shall find numberless instances in Italy in which the first choice has been boldly, and I think most wisely made; and magnificent buildings have been composed of systems of small but perfect shafts, multiplied and superimposed. So long as the idea of the symmetry of a perfect shaft remained in the builder’s mind, his choice could hardly be directed otherwise, and the adoption of the built and tower-like shaft appears to have been the result of a loss of this sense of symmetry consequent on the employment of intractable materials. ”

“ As usual in this style, the shafts are detached and not worked on the stones of the jamb. The mouldings of the capitals are carried through the jamb from end to end, and on the front of the piers between the archways is a curious moulding which resembles an undercut roll set up on end, and which has a capital as if it were a shaft. ”

“ All the shafts have floriated capitals; and the great arches have similar mouldings. Four sets of ornaments run round each arch; a continuous chevron, a richly floriated roll, a roll with bands, and a series of billets. Between the arches there rises a clustered shaft which reaches to the level of the highest points of the arches: here these shafts combine with an ornamented stringcourse which runs in a straight line along the entire front. ”

“ A much less practised eye than the architect's would have understood at a glance that if a living man were let down through the shaft in the centre of the dome, and left on the floor, he could not possibly get up even as far as the other hole, since the smooth cement offered not the slightest hold ”

“ When upright, they are in appearance, if not in fact, small shafts; and are a kind of bent shaft, even when used in archivolts and traceries;—when horizontal, they confuse themselves with cornices, and are, in fact, generally to be considered as the best means of drawing an architectural line in any direction, the soft curve of their side obtaining some shadow at nearly all times of the day, and that more tender and grateful to the eye than can be obtained either by an incision or by any other form of projection. ”

“ This base, as it is called, is nothing more nor less than the part of an order between shaft and floor, or shaft and pedestal, as the case may be. If it be next remarked that the upper part of the wall, adjoining the ceiling, is invariably finished by a moulded projection corresponding with the crowning member of an order, it will be clear that the shaft, with its capital, has simply been omitted, or that the uniform wall-space between the base and cornice has been regarded as replacing it. ”

“ The model house must have an upcast shaft, placed as nearly in the middle of the building as possible, with which every room must communicate either by a direct opening or through a lateral shaft. An ordinary chimney built in the usual manner is all that is required to form such a main shaft.
There must be no stoves nor any fireplaces in any room excepting the kitchen, of which anon. All the windows must be made to fit closely, as nearly air-tight as possible. No downcast shaft is required, the pressure of the surrounding outer atmosphere being sufficient. ”

“ We have not, however, in reducing our walls to shafts, calculated on the probabilities of our obtaining better materials than those of which the walls were built; and we shall therefore first consider the form of shaft which will be best when we have the best materials; and then consider how far we can imitate, or how far it will be wise to imitate, this form with any materials we can obtain. ”