Diamond vault

First appearing in 1471 at Albrechtsburg castle in Meissen, Germany, they were employed for almost a century in locations as far apart as Gdańsk on the Baltic to Bechyně in Southern Bohemia (today's Czech Republic).

[1] From the historical point of view, diamond vaults show the continuing vitality of the Gothic architecture in Central Europe, at a time when the rediscovery of the classical past in Renaissance Italy was changing the course of building.

The design of diamond vaults involved an understanding of how the whole interior is shaped through a correlation of its geometry, spatial composition and support system.

The vaults have the ability visually to integrate or to compartmentalise interiors, to make them appear to expand through seamless recession or to diminish them by the presence of claustrophobic, heavily projecting ridges.

They can add an element of playful irregularity to symmetrical spaces, or conversely can harmonise oddly shaped interiors.