page_title: Buttress
hierarchical_section_title: Buttress
caption_attribution_description: Alley in Formia
context_page_description: A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral forces arising out of the roof structures that lack adequate bracing.
  The term counterfort can be synonymous with buttress, and is often used when referring to dams, retaining walls and other structures holding back earth.
  Early examples of buttresses are found on the Eanna Temple, dating to as early as the 4th millennium BCE.
context_section_description: A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (sideways) forces arising out of the roof structures that lack adequate bracing.
  The term counterfort can be synonymous with buttress, and is often used when referring to dams, retaining walls and other structures holding back earth.
  Early examples of buttresses are found on the Eanna Temple (ancient Uruk), dating to as early as the 4th millennium BCE.
caption: Vicolo di Formia (1956)
  Oil painting by Antonio Sicurezza of an alleyway with flying buttresses between buildings
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