the.com/spire
architecture's middle finger to gravity, dressed up as devotion.
means The tapering, pointed top of a tower or steeple that rises to a sharp peak, especially on a church.
from From Old English 'spir,' meaning a stalk, sprout, or blade of grass — the slender shoot a plant sends skyward. The word kept that sense of something tall and tapering as it climbed onto architecture, and it's related to a cluster of Germanic words for spikes and shoots, a cousin of 'spear' in spirit if not strict descent.
- height record
- Lincoln Cathedral's spire beat the Great Pyramid in 1311
- lightning magnet
- church spires drew strikes before rods were invented
- word root
- comes from Old English for stalk or blade of grass
- hidden engineering
- many are timber skeletons sheathed in thin stone
- fragile giants
- Lincoln's record-holder collapsed in a 1548 storm
salisbury cathedral spire — england's tallest church spire at 404 feet (123m), completed 1320
chicago tribune tower — gothic revival skyscraper with twin spires in chicago, completed 1925
notre-dame de chartres — medieval french cathedral with two asymmetrical spires, built 12th-13th century