Spire

A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples.[1] A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape.[1] Spires are typically made of stonework or brickwork, or else of timber structures with metal cladding, ceramic tiling, roof shingles, or slates on the exterior.[1]

Since towers supporting spires are usually square, square-plan spires emerge directly from the tower's walls, but octagonal spires are either built above a pyramidal transition section called a broach at the spire's base, or else free spaces around the tower's summit for decorative elements like pinnacles.[1] The former solution is known as a broach spire.[1] Small or short spires are known as spikes, spirelets, or flèches.[1][2]

  1. ^ a b c d e f Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "spire", A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27
  2. ^ Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "flèche", A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27
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