In some churches built using Romanesque style, one finds a series of metal rods that span the width of the barrel vault, right at the point where the vault rests atop the walls (for example). Do these rods have a name?
The reason I ask is that I recently had occasion to visit a very beautiful church in the Austin area, one that has just been completed, and which was built in Romanesque style. Even though one would expect the advances of modern building techniques to render the structural advantages of such rods superfluous, they are there nonetheless, and appear (to my untrained eye) merely decorative. It would seem to me that the decoration of the vault would be more visually pleasing were it not interrupted by the sequence of rods, and I assumed that their inclusion was perhaps a choice based on tradition. Can anyone enlighten me?
Hmm. I’m under the pretty well-informed impression that in the old buildings (like the Arena/Scrovegni chapel there) that they are there for structural strength (after the fact–I think they’re usually put in later, 19th and 20th c as restoration; I recall that the iron rods at Padua were actually put there in the 19th c.). It could just be a (misguided) attempt by these architects to make something old looking? Or perhaps they did use old building methods and are in an earthquake zone, hah.
I don’t know of any particular term for them-- we just say “iron tie rods”. I don’t think they’re “period”, usually if ever.
I know that I’ve heard the rods mentioned in one of my art history classes, and I recall that they are also to be seen in the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence – which is, obviously, a much larger structure than the Cappella Degli Scrovegni. I assume they provide some degree of support to the base of the barrel vault, but a rod that thin seems pretty feeble. Of course IANa architect, so what do I know?
As far as I am aware, Austin does not have a particularly high amount of seismic activity.
Ah, on checking it out, you’re right, the Italians did use them sometimes rather than using flying buttresses when they were pushing it, and the French used them when they were asking for it (at Beauvais which was an obnoxious and failed project, although I can’t tell when the rods were placed there-- they existed in the 17th c, at least; they do seem to be original at SM d Fiore). You learn something new every day!
