Historically, most arch spans had solid spandrels, meaning that the areas between arches were completely filled in — usually with masonry — until the advent of steel and reinforced concrete in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Some bridges thus had deliberate openings, usually tubular, in their spandrels to allow floodwater to pass through.

Bronze spandrels between the third and fourth-floor windows depicted scenes from American industry: Shipping, Farming, Manufacturing, Mining and Lumbering.

Other famous sculptures by Pradier are the figures of Fame in the spandrels of the Arc de Triomphe, decorative figures at the Madeleine, and his twelve Victories inside the dome of the Invalides, all in Paris.

Winged Victories are carved in relief in the spandrels.

When visiting Venice in 1978, Gould noted that the spandrels of the San Marco cathedral, while quite beautiful, were not spaces planned by the architect.

Besides the tie-bars, the ribs are braced by horizontal and vertical bracing frames, while diagonal bracings are inserted in the spandrels, or spaces between the arches and the girders which carry the railway.

Likewise as well within the Christian " Tomb of the Cocks " in Beit Jibrin, which was a Palestinian Arab village located 13 miles northwest of the city of Hebron and part of the Kingdom of Israel, " we find two spirited cocks painted in red in the spandrels with a cross just over the center of the arch ".

Where a dome needed to rest on a square or rectangular base, the dome was raised above the level of the supporting pillars, with three-dimensional spandrels called pendentives taking the weight of the dome and concentrating it onto the pillars.

This small arch with pairs of crenelated Corinthian columns and winged victories in the spandrels, was built on the facade of a gate ( Porta Aurea ) in the walls, so the part, visible from the town-side, was decorated.

The railway bridge over Market Place was rebuilt in 1953 that saw the open spandrels of the original arch replaced with a dourer flat panel construction.

Its façade is more ornamental than that of the average International style tower, with horizontal strips of glass curtain wall alternating with spandrels of various types of stone, including green slate that was quarried in Wales.

In decorative art his most conspicuous achievement was the internal decoration and the glass mosaics covering the spandrels and choir of St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

Winged figures, very often in pairs, representing victory and referred to as " victories ", were common in Roman official iconography, typically hovering high in a composition, and often filling spaces in spandrels or other gaps in architecture.

Old Bridge, Pontypridd, with perforated spandrels

The building's high gables and deep roofs with a profusion of dormers, terracotta spandrels and panels, niches, balconies, and balustrades give it a North German Renaissance character, an echo of a Hanseatic townhall.

The central court is surrounded on three sides by round-headed arcading, with circular bosses in the spandrels.

The first contains the main entrance into the building, which is a simple arch with spandrels decorated with flowers.

The Corinthian capitals support trefoil Gothic arches, richly decorated with Prophets and Evangelists in the spandrels.

These may form two walls, known as the spandrels, which are then infilled with loose material and rubble.

He did much decorative work, too, on his own account, notably at Wallington Hall, in the shape of eight large pictures illustrating Border history, with life-size figures, supplemented by eighteen pictures illustrating The ballad of Chevy Chase in the spandrels of the arches of the hall.

The north aisle has one Norman and Early English Gothic 13th-century lancet windows, one of which has a later rere-arch with cusped spandrels, each with a carved rosette.

The fine 15th century nave roof has embattled tie-beams supported by arched brackets with tracery in the spandrels and also in the triangular spaces above the beams.

It has a two-storey, nine-bay facade and concealed roof on Peter Street with an arcaded ground floor with rectangular piers with round-headed arches and spandrels with the coats of arms of the Lancashire towns which took part in the Anti-Corn Law movement.

The engrailed spandrels and bases are inlaid with precious stones.

The spandrels of the main archway are decorated with reliefs depicting victory figures with trophies, those of the smaller archways show river gods.

The spandrels and the areas under the figures are filled with diaper work, themselves noteworthy.

In the Henry VII Chapel, these spandrels are replaced with hanging pendants.

Above them, in the triangular spandrels, a further eight groups of figures are shown, but these have not been identified with specific Biblical characters.

The top story contains more than thirty alcoves separated from each other by spandrels of blue and yellow tile.

Miller observes that various subsets of the five components can be devised to form cooperative units, ones that have different functions from the mousetrap and so, in biological terms, could form functional spandrels before being adapted to the new function of catching mice.

" Gould and Lewontin thus defined spandrels in evolutionary biology to mean any biological feature of an organism that arises as a necessary side consequence of other features, which is not directly selected for by natural selection.

The relative frequency of spandrels, so defined, versus adaptive features in nature, remains a controversial topic in evolutionary biology.

His 1979 " spandrels " paper has been cited more than 4, 000 times.

The spandrels over doorways in Perpendicular work are generally richly decorated.

Arches are commonly used in bridge construction and so spandrels may also appear in those structures.

The bridge is largely composed of flint and has a large inverted scallop shell in the place of the keystone and similar shells in the spandrels at each side.

The spandrels on the upper left and right of the arch contain personifications of victory as winged women.

Between the spandrels is the keystone, on which there stands a female on the East side and a male on the West side.

The angels in the exterior spandrels were designed by Henry Poole RA.

As part of reconstruction in the 1960s the cast iron arches and spandrels were encased in concrete.

The bridge has undergone much repair and renovation work, including rebuilding of seven spans in the long arm and lowering of the roadway by changing the arches from an almost semi-circular to elliptical form ( 1848 – 1855 ), lowering of sidewalks and faces of the piers, spandrels, cornices and replacing crumbled corbels as closely to the originals as possible.