Customer Reviews

Diamond Vaults: Innov and Geometry

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This is an excellent review of a rare and little known innovation in a special type of vault work in interior spaces called diamond vaults. Apparently it emerged as a result of the initiative of one architect, Arnold von Westfalen, in the new construction for the Albrechtsburg castle in 1471. This sharp-edged, ribless plaster vault has the peculiar quality of folded paper, or some other monolithic material with sharply folded edges, and this very particular kind of late medieval building craft made its way through Poland and Czechoslovakia. But this is not irrelevant art history fetishism. The work provided by the author is an excellent contribution to the subject, the only one in english, and the dazzling effect of this architecture is reason enough to enjoy. But there seems to be an interest in this type of formmaking precisely because we see a formal relevance to these vaults and the forms architects are experimenting with today.

Whether or not you are interested in finding ways to link the formal sensibilities of medieval craftsman with architectural form in the digital age, you will nonetheless be amazed at this beautiful, innovative, little known, rarely seen architecture. Highly recommended.