Roman Architecture - Wikispaces · Introduction •Roman culture is the result of different...
Transcript of Roman Architecture - Wikispaces · Introduction •Roman culture is the result of different...
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
• 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
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