Round tower

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Keep of Fröhlichsturm Castle in Mals
Former Uzès cathedral with Romanesque bell tower
Death lamp from Culhat , France
Marine water tower of the Red Castle of the Navy in Flensburg - Mürwik
Modern round tower as a design or historicizing element at the Kurt Schumacher barracks in Hanover

A round tower is a tower with a round floor plan. It can be free-standing or part of a larger building complex. The round shape can be chosen for both aesthetic and functional reasons.

Types of round towers

Different types of round towers are distinguished depending on their use:

Defense towers

In the case of fortifications ( castles , city ​​walls ), angular towers were more and more displaced by the round towers with the advent of cannons , as the latter were less severely damaged by cannon balls hitting the side. Often donjons or keeps were built on castles as round towers. Usually they served as a defense system and a retreat for the castle crew in the event of a siege; in some castles they were also the home of the lord of the castle ( residential tower ) - examples are Bonaguil Castle and Coucy Castle in France or Bothwell Castle in Great Britain . Round towers were also used for city fortifications and curtain walls . They represented cornerstones of the defense or protected neuralgic points such as the goal . For this purpose they were often equipped with battlements and defensive cores.

Stair towers

Most of the medieval staircases were spiral staircases that could be accommodated in round stair towers at churches and castles or palaces.

Church towers, bell towers

With the exception of Ireland , medieval round church towers were rare in central and northern Europe ; in southern Europe they can be found from time to time, although here, too, towers with an angular floor plan predominate.

Minarets etc.

Most of the minarets and towers in the Islamic world have a circular floor plan; The only exceptions are the minarets of the Maghreb, which are based on the Pharos of Alexandria , and a few jagged minarets in the Persian-Afghan region. The upper end is often formed by a pavilion-like attachment ( lantern ), which is called a chhatri in Indian culture . Significant examples are the minaret of Jam , the Qutb Minar in Delhi or the Hiran Minar in Fatehpur Sikri .

Death lights

Most of the funerary lights in western France were built as more or less large round towers.

Lighthouses

Most of the modern lighthouses are round towers, as the staircase inside was mostly designed as a spiral staircase .

Water towers

Water towers can be of different shapes. However, the round shape is common.

Further examples

See also

literature

  • Hermann Thiersch : Pharos: Antiquity, Islam and Occident; a contribution to the history of architecture. Leipzig, Berlin 1909.
  • Chris Gravett: Atlas of Castles. Tosaverlag, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-85492-470-4 .

Web links

Commons : Round towers  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chris Gravett: Atlas of the castles . Tosaverlag, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-85492-470-4 , pp. 28 and 53.