Corbel

Rules that use the word

Keep each half of a corbel vault over its wall. In a corbelled vault each course may project only a little beyond the one below, and each overhanging half must have its centre of gravity behind the inner face of its wall; load the tails of the stones with heavy hearting until the capstone is set.

A lintel carries only a triangle of the wall above it. In a bonded masonry wall the courses above an opening corbel over it of their own accord, so the lintel carries roughly the triangle of wall with sides rising at 60° from its ends; everything above that triangle arches onto the jambs.

Lombard bands and pilaster strips. Articulate plain rubble walls outside with shallow vertical strips (lesenes) linked at the top by a frieze of small round arches on corbels: the Lombard band.

Where it appears in the book

In the chapters Post and Lintel, The Ancient World, Romanesque and Gothic, The Americas.

A feature of Mesoamerican architecture.

Nearby in the glossary

Composite · Compound pier · Concinnitas · Conservatory · Corbelled dome · Corbelled vault · Corinthian · Cornice