The arch: how the timeless architectural form is back on trend
- In their embrace of the arch, designers and architects are integrating and softening spaces while echoing history
- They are used throughout House of Madison in Hong Kong and the new Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Xiamen, in China’s Fujian province
We can thank ancient innovators for putting the arch into architecture.
No one knows for sure who invented this ingenious structural form but the Romans are credited with exploiting its potential, enabling the construction of domes vast in scale and ornate in detail. Without arches, the world might never have seen the Taj Mahal or the Arc de Triomphe.
An architectural technique that boomerangs every so often into interior design, the arch is having a moment right now.
The appearance of arches in residential, commercial and hospitality projects is no surprise to Ed Ng, principal of AB Concept in Hong Kong, who used their curvaceous forms throughout his design for the new Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Xiamen, in China’s Fujian province, which opened in December as Hilton Worldwide’s fourth Waldorf Astoria property in China.
In construction, he notes, arches are elementary. “Back in the old days, if you wanted to build something up high that could transform strength from the horizontal to the vertical, physics dictated that you used an arch,” he says. The current fashion for archways began about five years ago, he adds.