Stereotomy can be defined as the art of shaping stones for the construction of vaulted structures, like arches and domes. Emerging in Europe in the Middle Ages, on the building sites of Gothic cathedrals, stereotomy allowed stonemasons to build complex systems using stone as a load-bearing material. Codified in original treatises in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the discipline would wane by the 1800s with the advent of the industrial revolution and new building materials. However, scholarship in the last few decades has revived the study of stereotomy and argued its fundamental role in the construction culture of many countries.

Drawing and the Art of Stereotomy

The production process of stereotomic architecture – both then and now – needs to solve three linked operations: design: an aesthetic intent to organise the joints between stones (building components) in a way that fulfils structural-geometrical requirements; template: an ability to describe geometrically any point of a vaulted system to produce the required templates, using a coherent and repeatable set of rules; and production: a stone-cutting (fabrication) protocol aiming at the efficient and standardized creation of any voussoir (building components), even with curved and non-orthogonal faces.

The development of these stereotomic operations was medieval in origin. However, although it predates the early modern period, it was first codified through beautifully illustrated treatises during the Renaissance, predominantly in Spain and France. The most widely known of these were those of Alonso de Vandelvira (1578) and Philibert de L’Orme (1567). These graphical texts – which can be understood as early iterations of an instruction manual – collected and published the teachings and constructive principles that had evolved during the Middle Ages and beyond, illustrating numerous typologies of arches, stairs, and complex vaulted systems. They also explored how these structures could be adapted, by showing different variations and methods of subdividing regular curved surfaces as spheres and cones, which could then be used to control and build double-curved surfaces and interlocking systems in stone.

Not unlike a complex parametric projection produced by computers today, the intricate drawings of the stereotomy designs are hard to decipher for the uninitiated. Often accompanied by an explanatory text, they communicate the geometric projections required to define all the templates necessary for producing the voussoirs – the wedge-shaped elements used in building an arch or vault – and the required stone-cutting instructions.

These drawings are not only instructions but design tools that. They enabled stonemasons to precisely determine the position of each point on a three-dimensional surface of a vault and to appropriately dress each stone block into which the surface was subdivided. Interestingly, the development of descriptive geometry for these surfaces happened alongside the development of stereotomy, with one taking reference from the other – an example of the integration of drawing, engineering, and building.

Broadly speaking, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Renaissance had prompted a renewed interest in classical artistic forms and the retrieval of an antiquated past . In the following century, Enlightenment philosophy had begun to take hold and, with it, an emphasis on empirical study, the ‘rational’ recording of experience, and evidence-based thinking. These dual movements – which might at first seem incongruous – were fused in intellectual endeavours such as the Grand Tour, which encouraged the direct and sustained study of ancient architecture. Almost every notable British architect between 1750 and 1840 travelled to Rome, spending years sketching, measuring, and assessing ancient ruins and Renaissance efforts to reinterpret the lapsed wisdom of their builders. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, there was a sea change in the appeal of the lessons of Rome, the decline of which was epitomised in the United Kingdom by the decision to rebuild the Palace of Westminster in a Gothic rather than a Roman style.

Full article: Vault, Arch and Dome: Constructing Complex Forms at Foster + Partners