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24-598: Like the Iron Tower, the Wood Tower was used as a watchtower and gate-tower and later as a gaol . It was badly damaged in World War II and accurately reconstructed in 1961 for the two-thousandth anniversary of the city. It currently houses various organisations and clubs. Beginning in late Roman times, the city of Mainz (then Mogontiacum ) was defended by a wall with watchtowers and city gates. The first wall

48-427: A clock tower improves the visibility of the clock, and the height of a tower in a fortified building such as a castle increases the visibility of the surroundings for defensive purposes. Towers may also be built for observation , leisure, or telecommunication purposes. A tower can stand alone or be supported by adjacent buildings, or it may be a feature on top of a larger structure or building. Old English torr

72-418: A better view of the surrounding areas, including battlefields. They were constructed on defensive walls , or rolled near a target (see siege tower ). Today, strategic-use towers are still used at prisons, military camps, and defensive perimeters. By using gravity to move objects or substances downward, a tower can be used to store items or liquids like a storage silo or a water tower , or aim an object into

96-502: A combination of simple strength and stiffness, as well as in some cases tuned mass dampers to damp out movements. Varying or tapering the outer aspect of the tower with height avoids vibrations due to vortex shedding occurring along the entire building simultaneously. Although not correctly defined as towers, many modern high-rise buildings (in particular skyscraper ) have 'tower' in their name or are colloquially called 'towers'. Skyscrapers are more properly classified as 'buildings'. In

120-471: A twin tower on both sides of a gate system. Gate towers are also used symbolically as the main entrance in the design of modern building complexes. The Kasselburg in Rhineland-Palatinate has a double tower gate tower, which was also used as a residential tower. This architectural element –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Tower A tower

144-408: Is a tower built over or next to a major gateway . Usually it is part of a medieval fortification . This may be a town or city wall , fortress , castle or castle chapel . The gate tower may be built as a twin tower on either side of an entranceway. Even in the design of modern building complexes, gate towers may be constructed symbolically as a main entrance. The gate tower can also stand as

168-407: Is a tall structure , taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specifically distinguished from buildings in that they are built not to be habitable but to serve other functions using the height of the tower. For example, the height of

192-716: Is from Latin turris via Old French tor . The Latin term together with Greek τύρσις was loaned from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language, connected with the Illyrian toponym Βου-δοργίς. With the Lydian toponyms Τύρρα, Τύρσα, it has been connected with the ethnonym Τυρρήνιοι as well as with Tusci (from *Turs-ci ), the Greek and Latin names for the Etruscans (Kretschmer Glotta 22, 110ff.) Towers have been used by humankind since prehistoric times. The oldest known may be

216-580: Is possible that on the inland side the destruction was only partial). However, Mainz was an important political and strategic ally in the Hohenstaufens ' struggle for supremacy in the German Empire against the Welfs , and so in c.  1190 –1200 the city was granted permission to rebuild the defences. The predecessor of the Wood Tower, the so-called Neuturm (New Tower) was built in

240-639: Is surmounted by a hipped roof , in this case very steep. In contrast to the Iron Tower, however, the Wood Tower is much more slenderly proportioned, which is typical of the 'verticality' of the Gothic style. The former city gate has a pointed archway, and a ribbed vault for the ceiling. (As a result of the embankment of the Rhine in modern times, the passageway through the gate is now approximately 3 metres (9 ft 10 in) below street level.) Polygonal turrets with tall pointed roofs sprout from all four corners of

264-752: The Jacobin club who had organised the Republic of Mainz , were imprisoned in the Wood Tower. But its most prominent inmates were Johannes Bückler , known as 'Schinderhannes', and the members of his gang, who spent more than 15 months there before being guillotined under French law in November 1803 on what had been the grounds of the Electoral Palace of Favorite . 49°59′50″N 8°16′41″E  /  49.99722°N 8.27806°E  / 49.99722; 8.27806 Gate-tower A gate tower

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288-894: The Servian Walls (4th century BC) and the Aurelian Walls (3rd century AD) featured square ones. The Chinese used towers as integrated elements of the Great Wall of China in 210 BC during the Qin dynasty . Towers were also an important element of castles . Other well known towers include the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy built from 1173 until 1372, the Two Towers in Bologna, Italy built from 1109 until 1119 and

312-512: The Towers of Pavia (25 survive), built between 11th and 13th century. The Himalayan Towers are stone towers located chiefly in Tibet built approximately 14th to 15th century. Up to a certain height, a tower can be made with the supporting structure with parallel sides. However, above a certain height, the compressive load of the material is exceeded, and the tower will fail. This can be avoided if

336-788: The United Kingdom , tall domestic buildings are referred to as tower blocks . In the United States , the original World Trade Center had the nickname the Twin Towers, a name shared with the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur . In addition some of the structures listed below do not follow the strict criteria used at List of tallest towers . The tower throughout history has provided its users with an advantage in surveying defensive positions and obtaining

360-679: The broch structures in northern Scotland , which are conical tower houses . These and other examples from Phoenician and Roman cultures emphasised the use of a tower in fortification and sentinel roles. For example, the name of the Moroccan city of Mogador , founded in the first millennium BC, is derived from the Phoenician word for watchtower ('migdol'). The Romans utilised octagonal towers as elements of Diocletian's Palace in Croatia , which monument dates to approximately 300 AD, while

384-405: The Rhine from South Germany was piled on the riverbank in front of the gates and the wood market was held here, which gave the tower and gate their name. Like other towers in the city walls, the Wood Tower also served as a gaol in the late mediaeval and early modern periods. Thus in 1793, after the reconquest of the previously French city of Mayence by Prussia , so-called 'Clubists', members of

408-479: The base of the roof, supported by stepped corbels connected by lancet arches. The tall windows have typically Gothic pointed-arch frames. Busts of couples appear above two windows on the first floor on the city side of the tower: a burgher and his wife and a king and queen. The tower formed part of the fortifications of the city and also as a gate in the rebuilt city wall. In the Middle Ages, wood rafted down

432-592: The circular stone tower in walls of Neolithic Jericho (8000 BC). Some of the earliest towers were ziggurats , which existed in Sumerian architecture since the 4th millennium BC. The most famous ziggurats include the Sumerian Ziggurat of Ur , built in the 3rd millennium BC, and the Etemenanki , one of the most famous examples of Babylonian architecture . Some of the earliest surviving examples are

456-543: The city have called the "Roman-Carolingian" wall. However, in 1160 the continuity of the city's defences was drastically interrupted. There was a longstanding dispute between the citizens of Mainz and their archbishop , Arnold of Selenhofen (and also with the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa ); after the archbishop was murdered, the emperor imposed an imperial ban on the city. The city walls and towers were razed (although it

480-415: The earth such as a drilling tower . Ski-jump ramps use the same idea, and in the absence of a natural mountain slope or hill, can be human-made. In history, simple towers like lighthouses , bell towers , clock towers , signal towers and minarets were used to communicate information over greater distances. In more recent years, radio masts and cell phone towers facilitate communication by expanding

504-655: The range of the transmitter. The CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario , Canada was built as a communications tower, with the capability to act as both a transmitter and repeater. Towers can also be used to support bridges, and can reach heights that rival some of the tallest buildings above-water. Their use is most prevalent in suspension bridges and cable-stayed bridges . The use of the pylon, a simple tower structure, has also helped to build railroad bridges, mass-transit systems, and harbors. Control towers are used to give visibility to help direct aviation traffic. The term "tower"

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528-539: The second half of the 13th century when the previously independent settlement of Selenhofen was incorporated into the defences of the city. It replaced the Romanesque Wingert Gate; the first recorded mention of it is in 1366. The Wood Gate as it stands today is a Gothic structure dating to the first half of the 15th century. Like the Iron Tower, the six-storey tower has walls of crushed stone articulated by square quoins and two dividing cornices, and

552-485: The tower's support structure tapers up the building. A second limit is that of buckling—the structure requires sufficient stiffness to avoid breaking under the loads it faces, especially those due to winds. Many very tall towers have their support structures at the periphery of the building, which greatly increases the overall stiffness. A third limit is dynamic; a tower is subject to varying winds, vortex shedding, seismic disturbances etc. These are often dealt with through

576-575: Was built shortly before the destruction of the limes in 259/260 CE. Not long after 350, in the course of the abandonment of the Roman camp , this wall was lowered and rubble ( spolia ) from earlier construction used to enlarge and strengthen it. After the Romans withdrew, it was improved at various times, particularly in the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, becoming what archaeologists studying

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