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What Arches Can Become
An arch turns out to be useful in a lot of ways. It can be a portal or a door, it can carry a bridge, and at its highest application it can become a dome. The Sagrada Família in Barcelona, built by Gaudí, and St. Paul's Cathedral in London, built by Christopher Wren, both reach that dome-like quality.
Source Built
One investor calls structures like these source built, a step deeper than purpose built. Something source built is aligned with first principles and with how the world works, and its foundation traces along a thread through human history, biology, chemistry, and physics, all the way back thirteen point seven billion years.
Arches in Business
The same shape turns up in business. When win-win structures come together and line up with the principles of how things grow and grow better, they produce dome-like qualities in a company or a system. Where they appear, the thing is source built by nature.
How does an arch carry so much weight?
Stone is strong when squeezed and weak when stretched. An arch turns the downward weight above it into a sideways push that travels along the curve into the supports at each end, so every stone stays under compression. The wedge-shaped keystone at the top locks the stones together, and until it is set, builders hold the arch up with a temporary wooden frame called centering. Roman engineers used the form to carry aqueducts such as the Pont du Gard across a valley.
How did Gaudí design his arches?
Gaudí designed with hanging chains. He suspended small weights from strings, let them sag into curves, and studied the result upside down in mirrors and photographs. A hanging chain forms a catenary, a curve in pure tension, so flipping it gives an arch in pure compression. He used this method for the church at Colònia Güell and applied the same logic to the Sagrada Família.
How does the dome of St. Paul's stay up?
St. Paul's has three domes in one: an inner dome seen from inside, a hidden brick cone in the middle, and an outer timber dome covered in lead that sets the skyline. The brick cone carries the weight of the stone lantern at the top. An iron chain around its base resists the outward push.
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