Day 3 - Different Types of Vaults

To take such a seemingly simple system as the column and arch and create monumental structures seems impossible to me.  The way the arch can be worked and formed into a dome seems impossible.  Thank goodness I'm not an architect, because that is how some of the most amazing and beautiful structures were built throughout history.

The Romans began strengthening their arches with cement; often they were just stone blocks.  They began developing and using the barrel and groined vaults in the 1st century AD.  The groined vault is the inter-section of two barrel vaults that cross.  The intersection of the two barrel vaults creates four openings or bays.  On a more complex level this is what Romanesque architecture employs to create the layout and order of cathedrals.

Romanesque and Gothic style vaults