Roman Architecture

1º ESO GEOGRAPHY AND

HISTORY

Introduction

• Roman culture is the result of different

influences:

– Primitive cultures of the area Rome was

founded in (they were peasants and warriors)

– Etrurian civilization: urban, offering cult to the

ancestors

– Greek and Hellenistic: this was the model the

aimed at imitating.

Introduction

• Results:

– From the Italian origins:

• Practical sense (functionalism)

• Military expansion (imperialism)

– From the Etrurian

• Realistic sense

• Cult to the ancestors

– From Greece

• Philosophy

• Literature

• Art

Introduction

• General characteristics of Roman Art

– It is practical and utilitarian

– Interest in public works and engineering

– Monumentality

– Great technical advances

– Colossal to show Roman power

– It is commemorative and propagandistic

General Characteristics

• Special importance for the internal space

• Integral view of the art combining:

– Beauty and sumptuosity with

– Utility and practical sense

• Buildings are integrated in the urban space

General Characteristics • Building systems:

– Lintelled:

• Copied from the Greeks

• Spaces are closed by straight lines

– Vaulted

• Taken from the Etrurian

• Use of arches

• Barrel vaults

– Use of domes

– Strong walls so that they do not use external

supports

General Characteristics

• Materials:

– Limestone

– Concrete

– Mortar

• Arches:

– They used half point or semicircular arches

– They could use lintels above these arches

– Pediments were combined with them

General Characteristics: Building

techniques

Opus incertum Opus testaceum Opus reticulatum

Opus spicatum Mortar in the

foundations Barrel Vault

General Characteristics

• Walls were made in one of these ways:

Ashlar Masonry Brick

General Characteristics

• Material combinations in walls:

General Characteristics

• Greek shapes assimilation:

– Architectonical orders were used more in a

decorative than in a practical way

– Order superposition

– The use of orders linked to the wall created a

decorative element

– They used the classical orders and two

more: • Composite

• Tuscan

Roman Town Planning

• Cities were the centre of Roman life

– Need for infrastructures

• Water and sewer system

• Transport and defence

• Public spaces and markets

– Psychological effect: power and control

• There was a need of linking them through

paved roads

Roman Town Planning • The plan of the city

was based on the camp

• It had two main axes

– Cardus E-W

– Decumanus N-S

• Where the two converged was the forum

• The rest of the space was divided into squares in which insulae or blocks of flats were built

Roman Town Planning

• The most important part of the city was the

forum, where political, economic,

administrative, social and religious activity

were centred.

• Main buildings were in this forum

• In big cities there were theatres, circuses,

stadiums, odeons.

Caesar Augustae (Zaragoza) plan

Paved Roads

• Paved roads were needed to reach to any point of

the empire

• They facilitated both communication and political

control

Paved Roads

• The roads were made with strong foundations

• Different materials were put into different layers

• To meassure the distance they created the

Milliarium or stones located in the sides

Section of a Roman paved road

Paved Roads

• The roads were not completely flat

• They consisted of several parts

– The central and highest was the most important, it was

convex to conduct the water to the

– Ditches that were built in the sides

Bridges • Roman engineers were true masters building them, since constructions were

essential elements for reaching places and cities often situated at the bank of rivers.

• This location was due to defensive and infrastructural reasons -supply and drainage.

• They are characterised by:

– Not pointed arches.

– Constructions of ashlars masonry often with pad shape.

– Route of more than 5 m. wide.

– Route of horizontal or slightly combed surface "few curved".

– Rectangular pillars from their basis with lateral triangular or circular cutwaters that end before the railings.

Aqueducts

• Aqueducts were built in order to avoid geographic

irregularities between fountains or rivers and towns.

• Not only valleys were crossed by superposed cannels, but

also mountains were excavated by long tunnels, pits and

levels of maintenance.

• They were used to bring water to cities.

Ports and Lighthouses

• Roman ships and those for commercial trade should travel from port to port with the speed and security adequate to the life of a great Empire.

• In these ports every necessity for the execution of the usual works in a port ensemble should be found:

– gateways with stores and bureaux,

– shipyards for stationing ships,

– roads for taking ships to earthly ground,

– drinkable water fountains and

– machinery for loading and downloading merchandises.

• Indeed, a system of indication was necessary in order to mark the right access and exit to the port.

Walls

• Defence of cities has been one of the capital problems that civilizations had to solve in order to project the future of their citizens, goods, culture and ways of life.

• Romans were the first in the technique of improving different kinds of defence, using walls.

Forums • Forums were cultural centres in cities.

• They were often placed at the crossroads of important urban ways: cardo maximus and decumanus.

• A great porticated square was the centre of a group of buildings around it.

• They were communicated through it.

• Temples for Imperial worship, schools, basilicae, markets or even termae had a direct access through forum.

• In many cases even buildings for spectacles -circus, theatres and amphitheatres- were communicated so.

• Forums were a way in for important persons to tribunals.

Architectonic Typology

• Roman Architecture has a rich typology that includes:

• Religious building: temple

• Civil buildings:

– Public: basilicas, baths

– Spectacles: theatre, amphitheatre, circus

– Commemorative: Triumph arch, column

– Domestic: house, village, palace

– Funerary: tombs

• Engineering works:

– Bridges

– Aqueducts

Religious: Temple

• It copied the Greek model

• It has only one portico and

a main façade

• It tends to be

pseudoperiptero

• The cella is totally closed

• It is built on a podium

• Instead of having stairs all

around, it only has them in

the main façade

Religious: Temple

• There were other kind of temples:

• Circular: similar to the Greek tholos

• Pantheon: combined squared and circular structures and was in honour of all gods.

Civil Buildings: Basilica

• It was the residence of the tribunal

• It is rectangular and has different naves

• The central nave is higher and receives light from the sides

• The building ends in an apse

• It is covered with vaults – Barrel over the central nave

– Edged over the lateral naves

Civil Buildings: Baths

• There were spaces for public life

• They consisted of different rooms:

• Changing rooms – Different temperature

rooms:

• Frigidarium (cold)

• Tepidarium (warm)

• Caldarium (hot)

– Swimming pool

– Gymnasium

– Library

Caracalla´s Bath House

Spectacles: Theatre

• It is similar to the Greek but it is not located in a mountain but it is completely built

• It has a semicircular scenery

• The doors to facilitate peoples’ movement are called vomitoria

• It does not have the orchestra because in Roman plays was not a chorus

• The rest of the parts are similar to those of the Greek theatre

Merida’s Roman Theatre

Spectacles: Amphitheatre

• It comes from the

fusion of two theatres

• It was the place for

spectacles with

animals and fights

(gladiators)

• There could be filled

with water for naval

battles.

Spectacles: Circus

• It was a building for horse races and cuadriga

competitions.

• It has the cavea, the area and a central element to

turn around, the spina.

Commemorative monuments:

Triumphal Arches • They were usually placed at the main

entrance of cities in order to remember travellers and inhabitants the Greatness and strength of Roman world.

• At the beginning they were wooden arches where trophies and richness from wars were shown.

• This habitude changed: Romans built commemorative arches with inscriptions.

• They were a Roman creation and they succeeded: many of them have been constructed until the present days.

• Arches were used not only for commemorating Roman victories or military generals: they also marked limits between provincial borders.

Commemorative monuments:

Columns

• They were columns decorated with relieves

• In them some important facts were related

• They were built in the honour of a person.

• The best instance of these works is the famous Traian Column at Rome. It is decorated with a spiral of relieves dealing with scenes of his campaigns in Danube and with inscriptions.

Houses: Insulae

• There are urban houses

• In order to take advantage from the room in cities, buildings up to four floors were constructed.

• The ground floor was for shops -tabernae- and the others for apartments of different sizes.

• Every room was communicated through a central communitarian patio decorated with flowers or gardens.

Houses: Domus

• It was the usual housing for important people in each city.

• It was endowed with a structure based on distribution through porticated patios:

– the entry -fauces- gives access to

– a small corridor -vestibulum-.

– It leads to a porticated patio -atrium-.

– Its center, the impluvium, is a bank for the water falling from the compluvium.

– At both sides -alae- there are many chambers used as rooms for service slaves, kitchens and latrines.

– At the bottom, the tablinum or living-room can be found, and close to it, the triclinium or dining-room.

– This atrium gave also light enough to next rooms.

– At both sides of the tablinum, little corridors led to the noble part of the domus.

– Second porticated patio peristylium, was bigger and endowed with a central garden.

– It was surrounded by rooms -cubiculum- and marked by an exedra used as a chamber for banquets or social meetings.

Houses: Villa

• Houses far from cities, were thought for realizing agricultural exploitations -villae rustica-, or else as places for the rest of important persons -villae urbana-.

• Entertaining villa was endowed with every comfortable element in its age as well as gardens and splendid views.

• Country villae got stables, cellars, stores and orchards apart from the noble rooms.

Palaces

• There were the

residence of the

emperor

• They consisted of a

numerous series of

rooms

• Their plan tended to

be regular

Diocleciano’s Palace at Splitz