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For those of you who aren't up to scratch on Gothic architecture, a flying buttress is a projecting masonry structure built on the outside of a cathedral to receive the gravitational thrust of the roof. Buttresses were used to support church walls externally, creating a space inside for impressive atriums filled with shimmering stained glass windows. You can see images of what we're describing on this page and this page. Pretty cool, huh? Instead of using big bulky stone blocks to support the ceiling of a church, these flying buttresses support the church from the outside. This leaves you lots of room to go crazy with colorful windows and extra-wide pews. Feel free to
go on a virtual tour of a Gothic cathedral such as Chartres, Canterbury, or Westminster Abbey. Now, Erin, as to how they were built, that's a bit trickier. A fantastic site called Architecture Through the Ages covers the groundwork: To build the flying buttress, it was first necessary to construct temporary wooden frames which are called centering. The centering would support the weight of the stones and help maintain the shape of the arch until the mortar was dry. The centering were first built on the ground by the carpenters. Once that was done, they would be hoisted into place and fastened to the piers at the end of one buttress and at the other.
These acted as temporary flying buttresses until the actual stone arch was complete. Another lesson we learned from our online research is that you probably shouldn't try building these at home.
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