Illustrated Architecture Dictionary .......................... Illustrated FURNITURE Glossary

Buttress
BUTT ris

A structure, usually brick or stone, built against a wall for support or reinforcement to resist the pressure of a arch or vault

Old French: "bouter" = to bear against

Commonly found in Gothic and Gothic Revival architecture

Types of buttresses: Pier ... Flying ... Scroll ... Curved ... Triangular

Scroll(ed) buttresses (right illustration above) flourished in throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

See also: Church Vocabulary

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Examples from Buffalo architecture:

• Left illustration above: Pier buttresses - St. Paul's Cathedral
  
  
• Pier buttresses - Darwin Martin House

• Pier buttresses - Buffalo Gas Light Company
  
  
• Pier buttresses - St. Frances de Sales RC Church
  
  
• Pier buttresses - Buffalo Seminary
  
  
• Right illustration above: Scroll buttresses - Silverthorne House
  
  
• Scroll buttresses - Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Museum

• Scroll buttresses - St. Luke's Roman Catholic Church/St. Luke's Mission of Mercy
  
  
• Second Empire style (Baroque Revival) - 186 Linwood Avenue

Other examples:

• Pier buttresses - Segovia Cathedral, Spain
  
  
• Early (Romanesque) scroll buttress - Santa Maria Novella Church, Florence, Italy
  
  
• Scroll buttress - St. Roch RC Church, Paris, France
  
  
• Scroll buttresses - The Piarist Church, Cracow, Poland
  
  
• Curved (monumental) buttresses - Sea Monarch Condominiums, Pompano Beach, Florida
  
  
• Yusupov Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia Flemish scroll buttress
  
  
• Furniture: scroll buttress - Cathedral, Palermo, Sicily