Spire

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Spire

A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower

Tower

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Lancaster University Chaplaincy Centre Spire

A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower

Tower

Towers are tall human-made structures that are always taller than they are wide, usually by a significant margin. Towers are generally built to take advantage of their height, and can stand alone or as part of a larger structure....
. Etymologically, the word is derived from Anglo-Saxon, so it is related to "spear," rather than the Romance languages

Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages comprising all the languages that descend from Latin language, the language of ancient Rome....
and "spirit."

Symbolically, spires have two functions. The first is to proclaim a martial power. A spire, with its reminiscence of the spear point, gives the impression of strength. The second is to reach up toward the skies. The celestial and hopeful gesture of the spire is one reason for its association with religious buildings. A spire on a church or cathedral

Cathedral

A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop. It is a Religion building for worship, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Anglicanism, Orthodox Christian and some Lutheranism churches, which serves as a bishop's seat, and thus as the central church of a dioc...
is not just a symbol of piety, but is often seen as a symbol of the wealth and prestige of the order, or patron

Patrón

Patr?n is a brand of tequila produced in Mexico and imported into the United States solely by The Patr?n Spirits Company, based in Las Vegas metropolitan area, Nevada....
who commissioned the building.

As an architectural ornament, spires are most consistently found on Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism#Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus and interpreted by Christians to have been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament....
churches, where they replace the steeple

Steeple (architecture)

A steeple, in architecture, is a tall tower on a building, often topped by a spire. Steeples are very common on Christian Church es and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a religious structure....
. Although any denomination may choose to use a spire instead of a steeple, the lack of a cross on the structure is more common in Roman Catholic and other pre-Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe. It is thought to have begun in 1517 with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses and may be considered to have ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648....
churches. (Note, in the photo at right of Lancaster University Chaplaincy Centre

Lancaster University Chaplaincy Centre

Lancaster University Chaplaincy Centre, on the campus of Lancaster University in the United Kingdom is a unique building bringing together the many faith groups represented on the campus and in the wider community....
, that the spire was originally intended to serve as a platform for three bare crosses in imitation of Calvary

Calvary

Calvary or Golgotha are the English language/Western Christian names given to the site, outside of ancient Jerusalem?s early 1st century walls, ascribed to Jesus's crucifixion....
. The centre is ecumenical, with Anglican/Methodist and Roman Catholic chapels. A decision to include a kosher kitchen and rooms used by Muslims and other religious groups led to the third cross being converted to a spike before completion of the building.) The battlements of cathedral

Cathedral

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture which flourished during the high and late Middle Ages. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
style (in imitation of the secular military fortress).

Currently, the largest spire to be part of the architecture of another building is the spire mounted on the recently completed Q1 residential tower on the Gold Coast

Gold Coast, Queensland

The Gold Coast is a city and Local Government Areas of Australia in the South East Queensland corner of Queensland, Australia. It is the second most populous city in the state and the List of cities in Australia by population in the country....
in Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
.

Spires are also common and notable as solo structures. After contact with Egyptian

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
architecture

Architecture

The term architecture can refer to a process, a profession or documentation.As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and construction buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter....
and the mania for Egyptian artifacts in the west in the 19th century, towers in the shape of obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk An Obelisks is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid like shape at the top. Ancient obelisks were made of a single piece of stone, a monolith; however, most modern obelisks are made of individual stones, and can even have interior spaces....
s enjoyed a vogue. When original obelisks could be imported, such as Cleopatra's needle

Cleopatra's Needle

Cleopatra's Needle is the popular name for each of three Ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London, Paris, and New York City during the nineteenth century....
s in London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
and New York City

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
, they were, but spires as memorial structures were popular in funerary architecture and public monuments (e.g. the Washington monument

Washington Monument

The Washington Monument is a large, tall, sand-colored obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is a United States Presidential Memorial constructed to commemorate the first U.S....
in Washington, DC) into the 20th century. In the Modernist

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century....
movements of the 20th century, office towers in the form of free-standing spires also began to be built. Some famous buildings, such as the Space Needle

Space Needle

The Space Needle is a tower in Seattle, Washington, and is a major landmark of the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and a symbol of Seattle....
in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the most populous city in the US state of Washington and the Northwestern United States. The encompassing Seattle metropolitan area is the 15th largest in the United States, and the largest in the Pacific Northwest....
, use the spire as a testimony of civic power and hope; in the case of this example, it is also a reference to Seattle's participation in aerospace

Aerospace

Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding outer space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through Aircraft and Space exploration....
. A 1,776-foot (541-m) "Freedom Tower

Freedom Tower

1 World Trade Center, or the Freedom Tower, is the main building of the new World Trade Center complex currently under construction in Lower Manhattan in New York City....
" is a projected feature of the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, and is to be topped by a spire.

Gothic spires

A spire declared the presence of the gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture which flourished during the high and late Middle Ages. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
church at a distance and advertised its connection to heaven. The tall, slender pyramidal twelfth-century spire on the south tower Chartres Catedral

Cathedral of Chartres

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, , located in Chartres, about southwest of Paris, is considered one of the finest examples in all France of the Gothic architecture style of architecture....
is one of the earliest spires. Openwork spires were an astounding architectural innovation, beginning with the early fourteenth-century spire at Freiburg cathedral

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-W?rttemberg, Germany, in the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest. It straddles the Dreisam river, on the foothills of the Schlossberg....
, in which the pierced stonework was held together by iron cramps. The openwork spire, according to Robert Bork, represents a "radical but logical extension of the Gothic tendency towards skeletal structure." The organic skeleton of Antoni Gaudi's

Antoni Gaudí

Antoni Pl?cid Guillem Gaud? i Cornet ? in English sometimes referred to by the Spanish language translation of his name, Antonio Gaud? ? was a Spain Catalonia architecture who belonged to the Modernisme movement and was famous for his unique and highly individualistic designs....
phenomenal spires at the Sagrada Família

Sagrada Familia

The Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Fam?lia , often simply called the Sagrada Fam?lia, is a massive Roman Catholic church under construction in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain....
in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the capital and most populous city of the Autonomous communities of Spain of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008, while the population of the Metropolitan Area was 3,161,081....
represent an outgrowth of this Gothic tendency. Designed and begun by Gaudi in 1884, they were not completed until the 20th century.

In England

England

Salisbury Cathedral

building_name= Salisbury Cathedral|year_built=|year_end=|year_highest =|location= Salisbury, England|antenna_spire= 123m/404ft*|construction_period = 1220-1258 ...
. Its 403-foot (123-m) spire, built between 1320 and 1380, is the tallest of the period anywhere in the world, and in its way is as remarkable as the Coliseum in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
or the parthenon

Parthenon

The Parthenon is a Greek temple of the Greek gods Athena, built in the 5th century BC on the Acropolis of Athens. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the development of the Doric order....
in Athens

Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
. A similar but slightly smaller spire was built at Leighton Buzzard

Leighton Buzzard

Leighton Buzzard is a town near the Chiltern Hills in Bedfordshire, and is between Luton and Milton Keynes. It adjoins Linslade and the name Leighton Buzzard is sometimes used to refer to the combination of the two towns; parts of this article also apply to Linslade....
in Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a county in England that forms part of the East of England Regions of England.Its county town is Bedford, Bedfordshire. It borders Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire....
, England

England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
, which indicates the popularity of the spire spreading across the country during this period. We will never know the true popularity of the medieval spire, as many more collapsed within a few years of building than ever survived to be recorded. In the United Kingdom spires generally tend to be reserved for ecclesiastical building, with the exception to this rule being the spire at Burghley House

Burghley House

Burghley House is a grand 16th-century England country house near the town of Stamford, Lincolnshire in Lincolnshire, England. Its park was laid out by Capability Brown....
, built for Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was List of English monarchs and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the House of Tudor....
's Lord Chancellor

Lord Chancellor

The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom....
in 1585.

In the early Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
the spire was not restricted to the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
: the fashion spread across Europe. In Antwerp

Antwerp

||-||-||-||}Antwerp is a city and municipality in Belgium and the capital of the Antwerp in Flanders, one of Belgium's three regions....
the 123 m spire was the tallest structure in the low countries

Low Countries

The Low Countries, the historical region of de Nederlanden, are the country on low-lying land around the river delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse River rivers....
for over five centuries. Between 1221 and 1457 richly decorated open spires were built for the Cathedral of Burgos

Burgos

Burgos is a city of northern Spain, at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178.000 inhabitants in the city proper and another 15,000 in its suburbs....
in Spain

Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
, while at Ulm

Ulm

Ulm is a city in the Germany States of Germany of Baden-W?rttemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at 120,000 , forms an urban district of its own and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau ....
Cathedral in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
the 529-foot (161-m) spire was built in the imported French Gothic style between 1377 and 1417.

Interestingly, the Italians never really embraced the spire as an architectural feature, preferring the classical styles. The gothic style was a feature of Germanic northern Europe and was never to the Italian taste, and the few gothic buildings in Italy always seem incongruous.

The blend of the classical styles with a spire occurred much later. In 1822, in London

London

John Nash (architect)

John Nash was an Anglo-Welsh architect responsible for much of the layout of English Regency London.Born in Lambeth, London as the son of a Wales millwright, Nash trained with architect Sir Robert Taylor , but his own career was initially unsuccessful and short-lived....
built All Souls' Church, Langham Place, a circular classical temple, with Ionic

Ionic order

The Ionic order column forms one of the Classical order of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric order and the Corinthian order....
columns surmounted by a spire supported by Corinthian

Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is one of the Classical orders of Greece and Rome architecture, characterized by a slender Fluting column and an ornate capital decorated with acanthus leaves and scrolls....
columns. Whether this is a happy marriage of styles or a rough admixture is a question of individual taste.

During the 19th century the Gothic revival knew no bounds. With advances in technology, steel production, and building techniques the spire enjoyed an unprecedented surge through architecture, Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants....
Cathedral's famous spires, designed centuries earlier, were finally completed in this era.

Spires have never really fallen out of fashion. In the twentieth century reinforced concrete offered new possibilities for openwork spires.

Spire

Gothic spires

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See also