Counter-arch explained

Historically, the term counter-arch was used in architecture to describe multiple types of arches that provide opposing action:

• an inverted arch used opposite of a regular one. For example, an inverted arch in an open spandrel or in "Moseley bridges", a popular American Civil War-era design by Thomas William Moseley, where the counter-arches were intended as a low-cost alternative to diagonal bracing;
• any relieving arch;
• outer "rings" of compound arches overlaying the one forming the intrados, used in old English bridges since medieval times, are called "counter-arches" following the works of John Smeaton;
• an arch that is built adjacent to another arch to oppose its forces or help stabilize it.^[1] The counter-arch can be used, for example, when constructing the flying buttress,
• buttressing arches built between the opposing building facades over narrow streets of old cities;
• in fortification, an arch built on the tops of counterforts behind the bastion walls intended to limit the scope of the potential wall breaching;
• when a pier of the Old Westminster Bridge started sinking during the construction, Charles Labelye was forced to retrofit the bridge with open spandrels using the counter-arches springing off haunches of the two adjacent arches of the bridge thus relieving the pier.

See also

• Arcade (architecture)
• Flying arch
• Strainer arch

Sources

• Encyclopedia: Curl . James Stevens . A Dictionary of Architecture . counter-arch . A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture . 2nd. 978-0-19-860678-9 . 2024-01-03 . . 2006.
• Book: Murray, J.A.H. . A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: part 1. C-Comm (1893) . Clarendon Press . 1893 . https://books.google.com/books?id=WxyIUTOenmsC&pg=PA1061 . 2024-07-05 . Counter-arch .
• Book: Trautwine, J.C. . The Civil Engineer's Pocket-book: Of Mensuration, Trigonometry, Surveying, Hydraulics ... Etc. ... . Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger . 1874 . https://books.google.com/books?id=9i0JAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA289 . 2024-07-05 . The Moseley Bridge.
• Hodgson . John A. . The Behaviour of Skewed Masonry Arch Bridges . 1996 . . PhD.
• Book: Ruddock, T. . Arch Bridges and Their Builders 1735-1835 . Cambridge University Press . 1979 . 978-0-521-21816-0 . 2024-07-05.
• Book: Niglio . Olimpia . Ulivieri . Denise . Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions - 2 Volume Set: Possibilities of Numerical and Experimental Techniques - Proceedings of the IVth Int. Seminar on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions, 10-13 November 2004, Padova, Italy . CRC Press . 2018 . 978-0-429-62100-0 . 2024-07-05 . Vernacular architecture and “historical seismography”: an experience research . https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/144215803.pdf.
• Book: Lima . A . Correia . M . Gomes . F . Carlos . G . Viana . D . Lourenço . P . Varum . H . Seismic Retrofitting: Learning from Vernacular Architecture . Systematisation of seismic retrofitting in vernacular architecture . CRC Press . 2015-09-08 . 978-1-138-02892-0 . 10.1201/b18856-49 . 235–239 . 11 July 2025 . https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299866981.
• Book: Royal Military College, Sandhurst . Outlines of a Course of Lectures on Fortification, Military Tactics, and Perspective: With the Attack and Defence of Fortresses . Spottiswoodes and Shaw . 1852 . 2024-07-05.
• Book: Ruddock, E.C. . Masonry Bridges, Viaducts and Aqueducts . Taylor & Francis . Studies in the History of Civil Engineering . 2017 . 978-1-351-91928-9 . https://books.google.com/books?id=ulsPEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA165 . 2024-07-06 . Hollow Spandrels in Arch Bridges.

Notes and References

1. "counter arch." McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2003. Answers.com, 7 September 2008.