"Gaudí was drawn not just to the aesthetics of the catenary but also to what it represented mathematically. His use of catenaries made the structural mechanics of a building a principal feature of its design. Gaudí realized that the entire architecture of a building could be drafted using a model of hanging chains... when he was commissioned to design a church the Colònia Güell... he made an upside-down skeleton of the project. Instead of using metal chains, he used string weighed down by hundreds of sachets containing lead shot. The weight of each sachet on the string created a mesh of 'transformed' catenary curves. The arches of these transformed catenaries were the most stable curves to withstand a corresponding weight at the same position (such as the roof, or building materials)."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Alex Bellos, Alex Through the Looking Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers, and Numbers Reflect Life (2014)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arch
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Arch
31 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Arch →
Related Quotes
"...we must go to the poets to see what they all meant by it; but the sum is an emotion — clear and strong as love and…"
"Granted a Church, Saint Thomas's Church was the most expressive that man has made, and the great gothic Cathedrals we…"
"Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me." Polo answers: "Without stones there is…"
"Wherefore a monk's whole attention should thus be fixed on one point, and the rise and circle of all his thoughts be …"
"Centres, or centre-pieces of wood, are put by builders under an arch of stone while it is in the process of construct…"
"Within a shed erected on the construction site of the church of the Sagrada family... Gaudí... made an upside-down mo…"
"The exact shape of funicular (sometimes called linear or theoretical) arch[es] that carry all applied loads by axial …"
"Corol. 6.—In a vertical plane, but in an inverted situation, the chain will preserve its figure without falling, and …"
"From all ages architects have made use of arches in public buildings, as well for strength as beauty. Yet what was th…"
"Like all great churches, that are not mere store-houses of theology, Chartres expressed, besides whatever else it mea…"