Roman Architecture

Revision
 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 engeneering
– 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

Mortar in the
Opus spicatum Barrel Vault
foundations
 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 throug
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