The Vault — Architecture _□✕

Architecture

Catenary arch

Catenary arch
Catenary arch

A catenary arch is a type of architectural arch that follows an inverted catenary curve. The catenary curve has been employed in buildings since ancient times. It is not a parabolic arch, although the non-circumferential curves used in arch designs (parabola, catenary, and weighted catenary) look similar, and match at shallow profiles, so a catenary is often misclassified as a parabola (per Galileo, "the [hanging] chain fits its parabola almost perfectly").

Also on this shelf

Commerce Bank Building (Peoria, Illinois).

Christ Church Cathedral (New Orleans).

See also

Uncatalogued shelf

Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.

Depth 38
Shelf 1b3d49cbc2c8d4
25,934 catalogued holdings
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