Spire

For other uses, see Spire (disambiguation).
"Spires" redirects here. For the German city formerly known as Spires in English, see Speyer.
Before the Burj Khalifa, the Taipei 101 had the former tallest spire in the world.
The Burj Khalifa holds the record of the tallest spire in the world, with the height of 244 m (801 ft)
The Chrysler Building was the world-first skyscraper with a spire
Spire of Salisbury Cathedral (completed 1320) (404 feet (123 metres), with tower and spire)

A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples.[1] A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape.[1] Spires are typically made of stonework or brickwork, or else of timber structures with metal cladding, ceramic tiling, roof shingles, or slates on the exterior.[1]

Since towers supporting spires are usually square, square-plan spires emerge directly from the tower's walls, but octagonal spires are either built above a pyramidal transition section called a broach at the spire's base, or else free spaces around the tower's summit for decorative elements like pinnacles.[1] The former solution is known as a broach spire.[1] Small or short spires are known as spikes, spirelets, or flèches.[1][2]

  1. ^ a b c d e f Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "spire", A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27
  2. ^ Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "flèche", A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27