An Architectural Word: Bay
Una palabra arquitectónica: Crujía
I will explain an architectural word with pictures. The word I chose today is “Bay”.
A vertical division of a building.
Each of the vertically partitioned parts of the building with a column, buttress, or window arrangement. It is also used to mean an angled or curved protrusion from the wall of a building.
In architecture, any division of a building between vertical lines or planes, especially the entire space included between two adjacent supports; thus, the space between two columns, or pilasters, or from pier to pier in a church, including that part of the vaulting or ceiling between them, is known as a bay.
In church architecture, the term usually refers to the division of the nave into sections. In Norman architecture, the divisions are often marked by tall shafts extending from floor to ceiling, though later a bay could be marked by pairs of columns or pillars. When stone vaulted ceilings replaced earlier wooden ones, bay shafts (or groups of clustered shafts) terminated in a capital that supported the vaulting. The vaulting itself could be divided into bays by ribs. It is common to refer to a church or section of a church by the number of bays, such as ‘a a three-bay nave’.
