Google led me to wikipedia, which is the best substitute I have found for my long-absent Grove Dictionary of Architecture. There, I found an article called simply "Corbel", which I recommend if you'd like to know more about architectural application, significance and engineering realities of these features. My primary interest lies elsewhere. I'm more interested in the creativity and craftsmanship designers of stone and concrete have thrown at these support structures. Collecting images of corbels around Beirut is my new pet project and as such you'll be seeing lots of examples of them right here in the coming weeks. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I will.
So these are called corbels. Aha.
ReplyDeleteThese are especially nice.
Waiting to see your next finds.
I knew the term only in "corbelled roof," like the old stone domes.
The engineering reality of that first corbel would have to be classified as 'short term'!
ReplyDeleteThis should be fun. Will they all be stone and concrete? I have some of the same structures here in Sydney but they are mostly iron. Not called corbels though. Not sure, but think they are simply 'struts'.
Beautiful corbels:) (and corbel is a nice word, too)
ReplyDeleteCorbel ... what a nice sounding word ... bring on the corbels, this sounds like fun.
ReplyDeleteInteresting about the corbelled roof--I'd heard of a corbelled arch in art history, but I'd forgotten about it until this post. A corbelled arch is made of a bunch of corbels on the right and left side that pile on one another until they meet in the middle.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking around, and most of what I see in the city is concrete, deteriorating like these are. I've seen a few made of I beams, but that's rare here.
I have to agree with Joan Elizabeth--corbel has a nice sound to it.