Clerestory

Rules that use the word

Open flowers in the light, buds in the shade. Give the columns of the tall, clerestory-lit central aisle open papyrus capitals and those of the lower aisles closed buds.

Light the nave from above the aisles. Raise the central nave above the lean-to roofs of the aisles and pierce the upper walls with a row of windows, the clerestory, so that the middle of a wide hall is lit from high on both sides.

Arcade, triforium, clerestory. Divide the elevation of the nave into three storeys: a tall arcade opening into the aisles, a low triforium passage in the thickness of the wall against the aisle roof, and a clerestory of large windows reaching up into the vault.

The flying buttress. Carry the outward thrust of a high vault across the aisle roof by a half-arch of stone (the flyer) that leans against the clerestory wall at the level of the vault’s haunches and springs from a massive buttress pier outside the aisle, which takes the thrust down to the ground.

Where it appears in the book

In the chapters Post and Lintel, Walls and Openings, Vaults, The Ancient World, Byzantium and the Early Church, Romanesque and Gothic.

A feature of Ancient Egyptian, Early Christian, Gothic architecture.

Nearby in the glossary

Choir · Chuandou · Clapboard · Claude glass · Cloister vault · Close studding · Clump · Coffer