Engineering:Cant (architecture)

From HandWiki
Short description: Architectural term
The Chiesa del Purgatorio, Ragusa: the facade are angled (canted) back from the centre.
County Hall, Aylesbury with canted recesses

A cant in architecture is an angled (oblique-angled) line or surface that cuts off a corner.[1][2] Something with a cant is canted.

Canted facades are a typical of, but not exclusive to, Baroque architecture. The angle breaking the facade is less than a right angle, thus enabling a canted facade to be viewed as, and remain, one composition. Bay windows frequently have canted sides.[2]

A cant is sometimes synonymous with chamfer and bevel.[3]

References

  1. "cant" def. 5 and 10. Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press 2009
  2. 2.0 2.1 Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Cant". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
  3. Harris, Cyril (2013). Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture. Courier. ISBN 978-0-486-13211-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=kp_DAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT249. "chamfer: 1. A bevel or cant, such as a small splay at the external angle of a masonry wall"