Roman Architecture

Revision on Roman Architecture.

1. Roman Architecture
Revision

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. General Characteristics: Building
techniques
Barrel Vault
Mortar in the
foundations
Opus spicatum



Opus reticulatumOpus testaceumOpus incertum

9. General Characteristics
•Walls were made in one of these ways:
Ashlar Masonry Brick

10. General Characteristics
•Material combinations in walls:

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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.

15. Caesar Augustae (Zaragoza) plan

16. Paved Roads
•Paved roads were needed to reach to any point of
the empire
•They facilitated both communication and political
control

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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

28. 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.

29. 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

31. 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

32. Caracalla´s Bath House

33. 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

34. Merida’s Roman Theatre

35. 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.

37. 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.

39. 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.

40. 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.

41. 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.

43. 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.

45. 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.

47. Palaces
•There were the
residence of the
emperor
•They consisted of a
numerous series of
rooms
•Their plan tended to be
regular

48. Diocleciano’s Palace at Splitz