Arch

An arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.

Read more about Arch:  Technical Aspects, History, Construction, Other Types, Gallery

Famous quotes containing the word arch:

    Dark accurate plunger down the successive knell
    Of arch on arch, where ogives burst a red
    Reverberance of hail upon the dead
    Thunder like an exploding crucible!
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    Thir dread commander: he above the rest
    In shape and gesture proudly eminent
    Stood like a Towr; his form had yet not lost
    All her Original brightness, nor appear’d
    Less than Arch Angel ruind, and th’ excess
    Of Glory obscur’d: As when the Sun new ris’n
    Looks through the Horizontal misty Air
    Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon
    In dim Eclips disastrous twilight sheds
    On half the Nations, and with fear of change
    Perplexes Monarchs.
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    Concord’s little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)