Wall (architecture)

“ Of the many broad divisions under which architecture may be considered, none appear to me more significant than that into buildings whose interest is in their walls, and those whose interest is in the lines dividing their walls. In the Greek temple the wall is as nothing; the entire interest is in the detached columns and the frieze they bear; in French Flamboyant, and in our detestable Perpendicular, the object is to get rid of the wall surface, and keep the eye altogether on tracery of line ”

“ In case a wooden framework is used, however, we must see that no wall which does not reach up to the top of the house is constructed under the floor. Any wall which is there should preferably fall short, so as to leave the wooden planking above it an unsupported span. ”

“ The square-headed windows have a deep splay—the wall being very thick—their architraves as well as their cornices and pediments rest on small brackets set not at right angles with the wall, but crooked so as to give an appearance of false perspective. ”

“ The wall is built very thick so that enormous jambs, carrying a vast moulded arch, can be employed. The head of the door is filled with sculpture, which is also lavishly used in the sides and arch, and over the whole rises an ornamental gable, frequently profusely adorned with tracery and [Pg 83] sculpture, its sides being richly decorated by crockets or similar ornaments, and crowned by a sculptured terminal or finial. ”

“ The first remarkable point of the building is the roof. It generally consists of tiles of very deep curvature, which rib it into distinct vertical lines, giving it a far more agreeable surface than that of our flatter tiling. The form of the roof, however, is always excessively flat, so as never to let it intrude upon the eye; and the consequence is, that, while an English village, seen at a distance, appears all red roof, the Italian is all white wall ”

“ The thickness of the wall should, in my opinion, be such that armed men meeting on top of it may pass one another with­out interference. In the thickness there should be set a very close succession of ties made of charred olive wood, binding the two faces of the wall together like pins, to give it lasting endurance. ”

“ The concealment both of construction and arrangement is largely practised in Renaissance buildings. Behind an exterior wall filled by windows of uniform size and equally spaced, rooms large and small, corridors, staircases, and other features have to be provided for. ”

“ The second way of easing, is, for Walls that are made to support the Earth; for, besides the extraordinary thickness which they ought to have, they should have likewise Buttresses on that side next the Earth, so far distant one from another as is the breadth of the Wall; they ought likewise to have an Emparement or large Foundation which must be equal to the height of the Wall, so that they go diminishing by degrees from the bottom to the top, where they come to equal the height of the Wall. ”

“ Dimension stone, flint, rubble, burnt or unburnt brick,--use them as you find them. For it is not every neighbourhood or particular locality that can have a wall built of burnt brick like that at Babylon, where there was plenty of asphalt to take the place of lime and sand, and yet possibly each may be provided with materials of equal usefulness so that out of them a faultless wall may be built to last forever. ”

“ It rises by a steep curve between, on the right, a high wall of some ruined building, and on the left a curious knoll of rock, scarped steeply into a rectangular figure, about 30 feet high, and on the top of which are foundations of a building, 15 feet by 30 feet, which must have been as tall as the upper floor of the gatehouse, and have commanded the adjacent curtain, from which it is separated by a narrow hollow way. Following the curved road, a cross wall is reached, which cuts off the inner from the outer ward, and formed an outwork to the keep. ”

“ Further, at intervals they [53] lay single stones which run through the entire thickness of the wall. These stones, which show at each end, are called διἁτονοι, and by their bonding powers they add very greatly to the solidity of the walls.
8. One who in accordance with these notes will take pains in selecting his method of construction, may count upon having something that will last. No walls made of rubble and finished with delicate beauty—no such walls can escape ruin as time goes on. ”

“ But if a wall is in a state of dampness all over, construct a second thin wall a little way from it on the inside, at a distance suited to circumstances, and in the space between these two walls run a channel, at a lower level than that of the apartment, with vents to the open air. ”

“ There the design ought to be subordinate to the general effect of the architecture. The wall is not to be considered merely as a convenient place on which to plaster a picture, its structural purpose must be regarded, and this cannot be expressed if the design or treatment be purely pictorial—if vague perspective distances and strong foreground accents be used without symmetry or order, except that order which governs itself alone. ”

“ If a wall comes up solid, the unyielding nature of its solid structure must, when the joists begin to dry, or to sag and settle, lead to cracks in the floor on the right and left along the line of wall. ”

“ The accommodations within the city walls being thus multiplied as a result of the many floors high in the air, the Roman people easily find excellent places in which to live.
18. It has now been explained how limitations of building space necessarily forbid the employment of brick walls within the city. When it becomes necessary to use them outside the city, they should be constructed as follows in order to be perfect and durable. On the top of the wall lay a structure of burnt brick, about a foot and a half in height, under the tiles and projecting like a coping. ”

“ But if there is not room enough for the construction of a wall, make channels with their vents extending to the open air. Then lay two-foot tiles resting on the margin of the channel on one side, and on the other side construct a foundation of pillars for them, made of eight-inch bricks, on top of each of which the edges of two tiles may be supported, each pillar being not more than a hand's breadth distant from the wall. Then, above, set hooked tiles fastened to the wall from bottom to top, carefully covering the inner sides of them with pitch so that they will reject moisture. ”

“ Everything in the structure depends upon and leads up to the vaulting; everything in decorative treatment depends upon the structure. That is true except in so far as the universally felt need of ornament founded on the study of nature and of abstract form modifies design. Thus the carving in conventionalized leafage of a band, straight or seemingly bent around a pier, and the choice of colors in a decorative window or a painted panel of wall beneath a window, are indeed independent of the structure. ”

“ If it proves to be of earth, it must be cleared out and dried till you come to solid bottom and for a space wider than the wall which is to be built upon it, and then filled in with masonry consisting of rubble, lime, and sand. ”

“ The inner thickness consists of the framework of the coffers, which is of brick, and the filling-in of the coffers, which is of rubble or concrete. This would form the centering on which the outer shell was built, which is a curious tissue of arches, each rising from the crowns of those below it, and so disposed as to concentrate the pressure upon points in the wall which intervene between the cells. ”

“ Another ornamental use of these shadows is, that they break the line of junction of the wall with the roof: a point always desirable, and in every kind of building, whether we have to do with lead, slate, tile, or thatch, one of extreme difficulty. This object is [Pg 19] farther forwarded in the Italian cottage, by putting two or three windows up under the very eaves themselves, which is also done for coolness, so that their tops are formed by the roof ”

“ In Architecture it’s that part which is composed of the Architrave, Frise, and Cornice, for in effect this part is the extream part of the Flooring, which is supported by Pillars, or by a Wall if it have no Pillars. ”

“ The hieratic tradition was set aside for the direct teaching and inspiration of nature. But as the mastery of the painter increased, the mural spaces available for the application of his new methods diminished rapidly, till, by the thirteenth century, the only wall surfaces left to him were those beneath the windows, and some few [181] triangular spaces in the vault, where the interlacing network of arches became gradually closer and closer. ”

“ The wall of a building ordinarily requires some kind of base and some kind of top. The base or plinth in English Gothic buildings was usually well marked and bold, especially in the perpendicular period, and it is seldom absent. The eaves of the roof in some cases overhang the walls, resting on a simple stone band, called an eaves-course, and constitute the crowning feature. In many instances, [Pg 32] however, the eaves are concealed behind a parapet [10] which is often carried on a moulded cornice or on corbels. ”

“ A comparison of his work in the Panthéon at Paris with that of the other artists whose works occupy other wall spaces in that building clearly proves this contention, for, as a rule, the surrounding wall paintings, executed by about ten other artists, though excellent as illustrative works of art, are really out of place as wall decorations in their composition, treatment of design, and more particularly in their violent colouring. ”

“ The preferred isolation of buildings in space is as evident in the ubiquitous temples of the early nineteenth century as in the towering slabs of the mid twentieth. Monochromy and even monotony in the use of homogeneous wall-surfacing materials and the avoidance of detail in relief is balanced in both periods by an emphasis on direct structural expression, whether the structure be the posts and lintels of a masonry colonnade or the steel or ferro-concrete members of a continuous space-cage. ”

“ Even his dormer windows, picturesque, and, in a way, mediæval as they are in design, have pilasters and a Doric frieze, all approximated in their proportion to the classical standard. As for the main wall, it only needs a glance at the portico of columns in{150} the middle of it, to see how the proportions of those two orders have swayed the design from end to end. This front, except the two dormers in the middle, which are later, is very nearly of the same date as that building which is shown in Plate LI. But the transition to neo-classic art is much farther advanced. ”

“ This wall was originally incrusted with rich marbles, and the great dome, adorned with deep coffering in rectangular panels, was decorated with rosettes and mouldings in gilt stucco. The dome appears to have been composed of numerous arches and ribs, filled in and finally coated with concrete. A recent examination of a denuded portion of its inner surface has convinced the writer that the interior panelling was executed after, and not during, its construction, by hewing the panels out of the mass of brick and concrete, without regard to the form and position of the origin skeleton of ribs. ”

“ It is likewise of great Importance for the strength of Walls, that all be directly Perpendicular, and that the Chains, the Pillars and Pieds-droits or Piers be so situated, that solid always answer'd to the solid; for if there be any part of the Wall or any52 Pillar that carrys false, it is impossible the Work should continue long. ”

“ Above ground, let walls be laid under the columns, thicker by one half than the columns are to be, so that the lower may be [88] stronger than the higher. Hence they are called "stereobates"; for they take the load. And the projections of the bases should not extend beyond this solid foundation. The wall-thickness is similarly to be preserved above ground likewise, and the intervals between these walls should be vaulted over, or filled with earth rammed down hard, to keep the walls well apart. ”

“ Internally, the remaining thickness of the wall is arched in another order (either square or sloping) , which arch has to spring at a higher level to avoid the catching against it of the door while opening.
A doorway thus constructed may be clothed with what decorations you think good; and, if you are working in the Pointed style, the principle applies just as well as in Norman; indeed, we have here the principles of nearly all good doorways, whether Romanesque or Gothic (Fig. 234) .{78}
Fig. ”

“ The proportions of the internal elevation are such that, if the entire height of the wall be divided into nine parts, four go to the main arcade, two to the triforium or gallery, and three to the clerestory (Fig. 253) .
Fig. 253.—Sectional view of Nave, St. Alban’s.
The arches of each are of three orders, and are, for the most part, without shafts; the section of the jamb and arch being the same, severed only by a simple{102} impost. A broad pilaster buttress runs up the face of each pier from floor to ceiling. ”

“ Lib. 1.
Chap. 5. The effect of these Buttresses is not only to support the Earth by their Resistance, but likewise to lessen its Efforts when it swells, in dividing it into many parts.
Lib. 6.
Chap. 11. And it be judg'd that these Buttresses be not sufficient, the Wall also which supports the Earth must be strengthned with other Buttresses within.
54
ART. V.
Of Flooring and Ceiling. ”