Photos 30 Nov 2008 09:00 am
Photosunday – NY Lintels
- Walking to work one early morning this week, I noticed the decorative archway pictured above. This is an outgrowth of what in classical architecture is called a “lintel.” A lintel is, in it’s basest form, a block placed over an entranceway. It solidifies the two columns that reach around the portal. As it says in Wikipedia: The lintel often rested on pillars made of piled stones such as in the building of the Treasury of Atreus in Mycenae, Greece. In architecture around the world however, a lintel is not considered (as it is in the very narrow view of classical architecture) as purely an element of the Post and lintel.
I decided to pay a bit more attention to the overhead arches that decorate doorways leading to my office.
Here are some of those I found:
(Click any image to enlarge.)
All are decorative additions, but some are more decorative than others.
Some are downright cheap, and one even wonders why do it?
Some are beautiful in their simplicity.
A number even imitate the look and feel of the
“Rosetta” window over a cathedral’s door.
The awning introduces a wholly new element.
Some are near identical to others. The same architect?
How solid this looks.
Brick buildings present a new problem. The doorway is an add-on.
This can be decorative cement-work.
Here’s an attempt to create the decoration in brick.
Wrought iron filegree creates a whole new element of decorative design.
This building is typical of many of the buildings one sees midtown Manhattan.
The decoration gets to imitate gold and excess;
it has an attractiveness all its own.
on 30 Nov 2008 at 6:38 pm 1.Richard O'Connor said …
The second to last one looks like the Bayard Condict Building, which (of course) is New York’s only Louis Sullivan building.
On Friday I tried to do some architecture photography myself. I took a trip up the Church of the Intercession to see the Goodhue memorial.
Shows how much I know about churches, I assumed they’re open 24 hours a day, every day.
on 02 Dec 2008 at 3:12 pm 2.Jack Ruttan said …
Thanks! This post, and the next one about Bambi backgrounds are great (that’s all I’ve gotten to, so far).