Detail of a Bay-work House at Halberstadt

“Framed houses are especially numerous in the Harz Mountains in Germany. In the oldest specimens the ornamentation has affinity with the Gothic style, whilst the larger number show traces of the later Renaissance. The most characteristic feature of these buildings is that the storeys are not places perpendicularly one above another, but that each overhangs the one immediately beneath it. This overhanging construction gives scope for much external enrichment, and especially for that which forms the perpendicular ornament of these buildings, namely, the carved or fluted brackets which support the walls of the story above, and the spaces between these brackets [shown here]. The wall space below these is not always fluted or carved, but sometimes covered with a more or less ornamental outer coating of upright or sloping timbers.”

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