thumb|The [[Burj Khalifa holds the record of the tallest spire in the world, with the height of ]]

thumb|Spire of [[Salisbury Cathedral (completed 1320), ]]

A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape.

Etymology

This sense of the word spire is attested in English since the 1590s, spir having been used in Middle Low German since the 14th century, a form related to the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass.

Gothic spires

thumb|[[Chartres Cathedral. The Flamboyant Gothic North Tower (finished 1513) (left) and Romanesque South Tower (1144–1150) (right)]]

The Gothic church spire originated in the 12th century as a simple, four-sided pyramidal structure on top of a church tower. The spire could be constructed of masonry, as at Salisbury Cathedral, or of wood covered with lead, as at Notre-Dame de Paris. Gradually, spires became taller, slimmer, and more complex in form. Triangular sections of masonry, called broaches were added to the sides, at an angle to the faces of the tower, as at St Columba, Cologne. In the 12th and 13th centuries, more ornament was added to the faces of the spires, particularly gabled dormers over the centres of the faces of the towers, as in the southwest tower of Chartres Cathedral. Additional vertical ornament, in the form of slender pinnacles in pyramid shapes, were often placed around the spires, to express the transition between the square base and the octagonal spire.

The spires of the late 13th century achieved great height; one example was Freiburg Minster in Germany, where the gabled lantern and spire reached a height of . In England, a tall needle spire was sometimes constructed at the edge of tower, with pinnacles at the other corners. The western spires of Lichfield Cathedral are an example.

Openwork spires were a notable architectural innovation, beginning with the spire at Freiburg Minster, in which the pierced stonework was held together by iron cramps. The openwork spire, represented a radical but logical extension of the Gothic tendency toward a skeletal structure.

Crown spires

thumb|upright|Crown spire on the [[High Kirk, Edinburgh.) is a name given to spires in Gothic architecture: in French the word is applied to any spire, but in English it has the technical meaning of a spirelet or spike on the rooftop of a building. They are often richly decorated with architectural and sculptural embellishments: tracery, crockets, and miniature buttresses serve to adorn the flèche. The church is the tallest cathedral anywhere and has the tallest pair of spires.

  • St Martin's Church, Landshut, spire whose Brick Gothic tower was finished in 1507, makes it the tallest brick-built church in the world, and the second tallest (unreinforced) brick building anywhere.
  • The spire at Burghley House in England, built for Elizabeth I's Lord Chancellor in 1585 is an example of a spire on a non-religious building.
  • The 123 metre spire of Antwerp Cathedral is the tallest ecclesiastical structure in the Low Countries.
  • The 119 metre pair of spires of Uppsala Cathedral are the tallest in Scandinavia.
  • Ulm Minster, a Lutheran church in Germany, has the distinction of having the tallest church tower in Europe, at 161.5 metres or 530 feet. The height was deliberately sought to make it slightly higher than the Catholic Cologne Cathedral.
  • The Spire of Notre-Dame de Paris designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was a famous flèche that crowned the crossing ridge of Notre-Dame de Paris between 1859 and 2019.
  • The organic skeleton of Antoni Gaudi's spires at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona are a blend of Gothic and Gaudi's particular style. Designed and begun by Gaudi in 1884, they are still being completed in the early 21st century.

Religious symbolism

In Gothic architecture, where the spire is most commonly used, and particularly in Gothic cathedrals and churches it symbolised the heavenly aspirations of churches' builders, as well as offering a visual spectacle of extreme height.

thumb|360x360px|The [[Chrysler Building was the world-first skyscraper with a spire]]

thumb|250px|Before the [[Burj Khalifa, the Taipei 101 had the former tallest spire in the world.]]

List of tallest spires (skyscraper)

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|-

!Rank

!Name

!Spire height

!Completed

!Country

!City

|-

| 1 || Burj Khalifa || || 2009 || || Dubai

|-

| 2 || Merdeka 118 || || 2021 || || Kuala Lumpur

|-

| 3 || One World Trade Center || || 2014 || || New York City

|-

| 4 || Lakhta Center || || 2019 || || Saint Petersburg

|-

| 5 || Bank of America Tower || || 2009 || || New York City

|-

| 6 || Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower || || 2012 || || Mecca

|-

| 7 || Landmark 81 || || 2018 || || Ho Chi Minh City

|-

| 8 || Autograph Tower || || 2022 || || Jakarta

|-

| 9 || Taipei 101 || || 2004 || || Taipei

|-

| 10 || Bank of China Tower || || 1990 || || Hong Kong

|-

| 11 || Empire State Building || || 1931 || || New York City

|-

| rowspan='2'| 12 || Petronas Tower 1 || rowspan='2'| || rowspan='2'| 1996 || rowspan='2'| || rowspan='2'| Kuala Lumpur

|-

| Petronas Tower 2

|-

| 13 || Emirates Tower One || || 2000 || || Dubai

|-

| 14 || Emirates Tower Two || || 2000 || || Dubai

|-

| 15 || Chrysler Building || || 1930 || || New York City

|-

| 16 || Jin Mao Tower || || 1999 || || Shanghai

|-

| 17 || One Vanderbilt || || 2020 || || New York City

|-

| rowspan='2'| 18 || IPK Kedah Tower || rowspan='2'| || 2012 || rowspan='2'| || rowspan='2'| Alor Setar

|-

| SADA Tower || 2016

|}

See also

  • Pinnacle
  • Flèche
  • Crooked spire
  • List of twisted spires
  • Gothic architecture
  • Gothic cathedrals and churches
  • Spire of Dublin

References