post-and-lintel system

▪ architecture

      in building construction, a system in which two upright members, the posts, hold up a third member, the lintel, laid horizontally across their top surfaces. All structural openings have evolved from this system, which is seen in pure form only in colonnades and in framed structures, because the posts of doors, windows, ceilings, and roofs normally form part of the wall.

      The lintel must bear loads that rest on it as well as its own load without deforming or breaking. Brick or stone, weak in tensile strength (inelastic and brittle), can provide only a short lintel; steel can be used for long lintels. Masonry lintels, depending on the cohesiveness of mortar, are especially weak; therefore, in masonry construction, lintels of monolithic (single slab) stone, wood, and stronger materials are used.

      The posts must support the lintel and its loads without crushing or buckling. Post material must be especially strong in compression. Stone has this property and is more versatile in its use as a post than as a lintel. Under heavy loads, stone is superior to wood but not to iron, steel, or reinforced concrete. Masonry posts, including those of brick, may be highly efficient, because loads compress the joints and add to their cohesiveness. Monolithic stone columns are uneconomical to produce for large structures; columns are usually built up of a series of drums (cylindrical blocks). Such ancient structures as Stonehenge, in Britain, were constructed on the post-and-lintel system, which was the basis of architecture from prehistoric to Roman times. The interiors of Egyptian temples and the exteriors of Greek temples are delineated by columns covered by stone lintels. The Greeks substituted wooden beams for stone because the wood required fewer supports and opened up the interior spaces.

      The post and lintel were not fundamentally altered until the production of cast-iron columns, which were stronger yet smaller in circumference, thus greatly reducing the mass and weight of buildings. Much modern construction in steel and concrete is based on the post-and-lintel system, restoring the formal simplicity of the oldest structures to modern architecture. The original concept, however, of the duality of post and lintel has been abandoned and post-and-lintel has become a unit with the stresses distributed throughout.

* * *