The arch is one of humanity’s greatest inventions – the shape that let us build big, from Roman aqueducts to railway stations
The Arch Bar holds a 4.5 from fifty-nine people, and it is named after one of the most important shapes in the history of human civilisation – the humble, brilliant arch, the curve that let humanity build big.
The shape that changed building
Before the arch, builders were limited. If you wanted to span a gap – a doorway, a window, a distance between two columns – you laid a flat beam (a “lintel”) across the top. But a flat stone beam can only span a short distance before it cracks under its own weight and the load above. This severely limited how big you could build.
The arch changed everything. By building a curved structure of wedge-shaped stones, each pushing against its neighbours, the arch channels the weight downwards and outwards, into the supports on either side, rather than relying on the strength of a single beam. An arch can span far greater distances than a lintel, carry enormous loads, and it gets stronger, not weaker, under compression. It was one of the great structural breakthroughs in human history.
The keystone
At the very top of an arch sits the keystone – the central, wedge-shaped stone that locks the whole structure together. Until the keystone is placed, an arch is unstable, held up only by temporary supports; the moment the keystone goes in, the arch becomes self-supporting, each stone locked against the others, stable for centuries.
The keystone has become a powerful metaphor precisely because of this: the single crucial element that holds everything else together, without which the whole structure collapses. We call the central, essential part of any system its “keystone.” It is one of many everyday words and images we owe to the arch.
Rome, built on arches
The Romans were the great masters of the arch, and they built an empire on it. Roman aqueducts – those magnificent lines of arches marching across the landscape – carried water for miles on the strength of the arch. Roman bridges, some still standing and in use two thousand years later, rest on arches. The Colosseum is a structure of arches upon arches. The triumphal arch, that great Roman monument to victory, made the shape itself a symbol of power and triumph.
The arch let the Romans build on a scale the world had never seen, and their arched structures have outlasted almost everything else they made. Later, the arch evolved – the pointed Gothic arch raised the great cathedrals ever higher, and the vast arched roofs of the Victorian railway stations sheltered the age of steam. From the aqueduct to the station, the arch has held up the built world for millennia.
The bar
A well-regarded Chelsea bar doing a fair 4.5 across a modest sample, named after the elegant, powerful, load-bearing shape that made monumental building possible.
Verdict
Well-rated and named after one of humanity’s greatest structural inventions – the curve that holds up aqueducts, cathedrals and railway stations alike.
Have a drink beneath the arch, and raise a glass to the keystone – the single locking stone that turns a pile of wedges into a structure that lasts two thousand years.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
My mate’s in journalism and his silence was someone recognizing he’s been doing his job substantially worse.