Tented church

A tented roof is a type of polygonal hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak. Tented roofs, a hallmark of medieval religious architecture, were widely used to cover churches with steep, conical roof structures.

In the Queen Anne Victorian style, it took the form of a wooden turret with an octagonal base with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak, usually topped with a finial.

A distinctive local adaptation of this roof style was widely used in 16th- and 17th-century Russian architecture for churches, although there are examples of this style also in other parts of Europe. It took the form of a polygonal spire but differed in purpose in that it was typically used to roof the main internal space of a church, rather than as an auxiliary structure. The same architectural form is also applied to bell towers.

The term "tent roof" may also be applied in modern architecture to membrane and thin shell structures comprising roofs of modern materials and actual tents.

The "tent-like church" (шатровая церковь) is a national type of church that was developed in late medieval Russia. It marks a sharp departure from the traditions of Byzantine architecture which never put emphasis on verticality. Sergey Zagraevsky has argued that tented roofs have something in common with European Gothic spires. This architectural development has been described as a Russian parallel to the Gothic architecture of Western Europe. In this local adaptation of the tent roof it took the form of either:

Tented roofs are thought to have originated in the Russian North, as they prevented snow from piling up on wooden buildings during long winters. In wooden churches (even modern ones) this type of roof is still very popular. The earliest specimen of such a church was recently transported to an abbey in Vologda. Another notable example is an 18th-century church in Kondopoga, Karelia.

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