Illustrated Architecture Dictionary
Illustrated
Architecture Dictionary
Clerestory / Clearstory / Clearstorey
CLEAR storee / CLEAR stree
AKA overstory
An row of windows mounted high in a wall
Often refers to windows high above the nave in a church, it also appears in Prairie School houses
Found in an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romansesque or Gothic church
The clerestory windows are the nave windows
The Clerestory in Egypt
Natural light filled the open-air courts at Karnak. Within the temple's covered buildings, however, other means of illumination were necessary. One of the architectural solutions was the use of clerestory windows. In the temple's hypostyle hall, the raised central nave was lined with grilled windows. The high openings (280 feet above the hall's floor) allowed sunlight to enter the hall, while maintaining the privacy and secrecy of the space. The grills were composed of two sections, one stacked atop the other, and secured in place by being fitted tightly into grooves in the side of the bordering piers....
Less prominent, but very common lighting and ventilation solutions included cutting angled slits or square holes into a temple's roof slabs, allowing daylight to enter through these small gaps. Both the Opet temple and the hypostyle hall utilized this lighting method.- Digital Karnak: Construction Methods and Building Materials (online Feb. 2020)
The clerestory windows are the nave windows
Examples from Buffalo architecture:
- Illustration above: St. Francis Xavier Church
- Edited photo: Cologne Cathedral
- St. Louis RC Church (exterior)
- St. Louis Church (interior)
- St. John's Grace Episcopal Church
- Hellenic Orthodox Church of the Annunciation
- Corpus Christi RC Church
- St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral
- St. John the Evangelist RC Church
- Our Lady of Victory RC Basilica
Other examples:
