- clerestory
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—clerestoried, adj./klear"stawr'ee, -stohr'ee/, n., pl. clerestories.1. Archit. a portion of an interior rising above adjacent rooftops and having windows admitting daylight to the interior.2. a raised construction, as on the roof of a railroad car, having windows or slits for admitting light or air.Also, clearstory.[1375-1425; late ME, equiv. to clere CLEAR + story STORY2]
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Windowed wall of a room that rises higher than the surrounding roofs to light the interior space.In large buildings, where internal walls are far from the outermost walls, the clerestory provides daylight to spaces that otherwise would be dark and windowless. This device was used in Byzantine and early Christian architecture and most highly developed in Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals. As the nave rose much higher than the roofs of the side aisles, its walls could be pierced by a row of windows near the ceiling.* * *
in architecture, any fenestrated (windowed) wall of a room that is carried higher than the surrounding roofs to light the interior space. In a large building, where interior walls are far from the structure's exterior walls, this method of lighting otherwise enclosed, windowless spaces became a necessity. One of the earliest uses of the clerestory was in the huge hypostyle hall of King Seti I and Ramses II at the Temple of Amon (1349–1197 BC, Karnak, Egypt), in which the central range of columns, higher than those on either side, permitted clerestories to be built of pierced stone slabs.In Roman architecture many great halls were lighted with clerestories. Usually, groined vaults over the central hall allowed large semicircular windows to be built above the side roofs, as in the tepidarium of the Baths of Diocletian (3rd century AD) and the Basilica of Constantine (AD 310–320), both in Rome. This device was used in Byzantine and Early Christian architecture, as exemplified by the clerestory walls under the side arches of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (532–563).The clerestory became most highly developed and widely used in the Romanesque and Gothic periods. The Chartres cathedral (1194), for example, has pairs of lancet clerestory windows that are almost as wide as the aisle windows.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
