Vault
The power of the keystone
Time and again, we come across old building fabric in our projects - historical structures and elements such as wooden beams, brickwork, cement tiles laid to form mosaic floors, old strap and ship floors. Or on vaults that have spanned rooms in barrels, net ribs or cross ridges for decades or centuries. Today, we mainly notice their decorative effect and the atmosphere they radiate, forgetting why they were developed. To roof large rooms other than with a flat beam ceiling "in grandeur" and without a multitude of columns or pillars was only possible with the simple materials of earlier days by constructing relieving arches, ribs, work stones and keystones. The idea of the vault was driven by the great goal of symbolising the open sky and thus bringing sacred buildings closer to the divine.
Uncovering such treasures requires expertise, care and awareness, and each time it is like a revelation to discover the craftsmanship of past times. These tasks are seldom easy, because it is never quite clear what exactly lies behind the historically grown structures. Mostly, however, it is precisely from this that particularly exciting tasks develop. Instead of building "on a greenfield site" or into the "white cube", they require a very intensive examination of the existing, a classification in the contemporary context and a design that is not afraid to be bold and unconventional.