Eight place

Rose window of the portal of Notre Dame in Reims

An octagon is a proportion key from the Gothic . The octagon consists of a circle and two internal squares rotated by 45 degrees with their axis and diagonal lines. The eight place was mainly used in the medieval construction huts . The root word place means "corner" in the medieval language of the stonemasons ; so an octagon is a key with eight corners that is formed from the squares. This key is likely to have mainly formed the basis of the design of the tracery of the windows or portals .

There is also the term octogram for this, which is also used for the figure eight .

There are also other components - for example towers or roof turrets - that have an octagonal floor plan . These are also based on the Gothic proportion key.

In the octagonal central building - such as in the Aachen Palatine Chapel - which was already used in Byzantine church construction, the similar principle of proportions of the eighth star is likely to form the basis for the design of the floor plan .

Other names

• Eight-pointed
• Eight o'clock

See also

• Six-place
• quadrature
• Triangulature
• Compass rose
• octagon

literature

• Günther Binding : tracery . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1989, ISBN 3-534-01582-7 .
• Wolfgang Kamke: Pentagram, hexagram and octagon in churches of the Cistercians and other churches . Verlag Kamke, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-8330-0537-8 .