L11 Architecture - Lecture notes 11 PDF

Preview

Summary

Taught by Dr Anna Collar...

Description

Current approaches - Typological studies of building components - Comparative analysis of buildings - Structural analysis of buildings - Design of buildings/architectural history - Economics of building Themes today - Roman practice of architecture - primary focus on Rome - Traditional preoccupations - building designs, armatures, standard building types L14 and 15 - The townscape - Architecture as the embodiment of space created by/defining political activities associated with the townscape - Architecture and the power of controlling spaces - Public and private Sources for study - Archaeological remains - Some standing buildings - Pantheon in early Hadrianic form, turned into church - Forum of Augustus - revealed by excavation when Mussolini cleared Fia Del Impuro in 1930s - Street plans - echo of the Stadium of Domitian and the Theatre of Pompey - Brick stamps - Incredibly important - Brick faced concrete - developed 3rdc.BCE - very hard - Imperial period - faced with bricks manufactured in Delhi and shipped down to Roman towns - Late 1stc. - 2ndc. AD and again in 3rdc.AD - stamps encoding information - Names and owners of workshops, areas of production and date of creation - included names of annual consuls - Tracking output of workshops and dating buildings - If you look at enough bricks in a building you can tie the construction down to a few years - Literary sources - Vitruvius - De Architectura - Major Roman authors - mainly for relevance for the city of Rome - Livy and Tacitus, Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Cassius Dio historians useful for dates of buildings - Suetonius, Historia Augustus - biographies of emperors - Res Gestae Divi Augusti - Augustus’ building programme in Rome - Pliny the Elder - encyclopaedist and description of buildings - Pliny the Younger - letters, giving descriptions of buildings, especially villas - Others - poets, satirists, novelists - architecture as incidental to text - Marble plan of Rome and inscriptions - epigraphy

-

-

-

- Used alongside archaeological evidence - Useful for topography of Rome - Epigraphic evidence all over the Empire Depictions on artistic media - Coinage - difficult to use due to material restraints - Bas reliefs - sarcophagi and tomb carvings - Plaque fragments Renaissance Plans and drawings - Sources for buildings now lost - showing what artist chose to represent - Plans, elevations and drawings going back to 16thc. At least - sometimes earlier - Papal drive in drawing monuments of Rome - reimagining new buildings in the light of old ones to build a new Roman Empire - Reconstructions or accurate renditions of monuments and buildings - Helpful in recording before decay 18th century drawings

Construction materials - Traditional - Tufa - volcanic stone - soft - Travertine - limestone-like - quarried close to Rome - Marble - fashion comes from Hellenistic Greece - Ashlar Masonry - in the Republic - Opus quadratum - Concrete - opus caementicium - mortared rubble - 3rdc.BCE onwards - Aggregate (stone and rubble mixture) mixed with lime mortar (lime, water, pozzolana sand) - Brick facings for concrete - Opus incertum - late 3rdBCE to end 1stBCE - some 2ndCE - Opus reticulatum - late 2ndc.BCE to 2ndCE - some 3rdCE - Opus testaceum - early 1stBCE to 4thCE and beyond - Useful in dating buildings, especially with no other dating information Structural requirements - basic structural systems - Trabeated - post and lintel beams in tension - Arcuated - arches and vaults with very little tension - Equally supports weight and gets rid of issue of structural faults and pressure - Meant they were able to make buildings with vaults and domes - Barrel vault - Pavilion vault - Cross vault - Sail vault - Domical and umbrella vaults Innovation - Octagonal rooms - Domus Aurea - Market Hall - Trajan’s markets behind Trajan’s Forum - maximises light and airflow

-

Pantheon Innovations spreading to the provinces as well

Forum complexes - Forum Romanum - Go back as far as 6thc. In origin - Political heart of the Roman Empire - Development and formalisation of this space from 2ndc onwards to include political, judicial and religious parts of town - Temple Forum - Pompeii - Same sets of buildings with more formalisation of coloniae along the sides - Heart of civic life and the city - Basilica - Forum of Trajan - Acts as a series of open spaces with political and religious spaces closely linked - Basilica forum complexes - Occur further out in the provinces - Capitolium, Rome - Different types around the Empire - different structures allowing for different interpretations - Brescia - temple projecting from colonnade - Quinn and Wilson 2013 - capitolium made up of three different temples may be north african type/origin - Temples of Emperor Cults - Temple of Augustus - Maison Carree, Nimes - Severan Temple, Djemila - Tradition vs innovation - Pantheon CE118-125 - began as classical rectangular temple before drum was added at the rear with extraordinary dome Armatures - Colonnaded streets - Arches - triumphal arches marking entrances and exits to cities to signify passing through of people - Enable particular individuals and events to be commemorated, remembered and respected in a way seen by the whole population - Scaffolding of civic life as people move through the city Baths - Urban baths - Balneae - Structured around suite of exercise rooms, hot rooms, palaestra, cold rooms, steam rooms etc - Could rent space out to shopkeepers - Crucial role throughout Empire - Different layouts with same rooms - does this indicate different social activity or was it all the same? How did people move through the space?

-

Imperial baths - Thermae - Monumental scale - Almost cities within themselves - libraries, lecture halls, exercise rooms, shops, baths etc - Developed Augustan period onwards - More common in 1stc.AD

Theatres and Ampitheatres - Greek and Roman - look superficially similar - Roman raised up rather than set into the ground - used for more social activities and central in political, theatrical and social life - Monumentalisation of building type - Amphitheatres - Origins in Campagna in Italy - formalised in stone until 1stc.AD - Pompeii - earliest surviving example - Thysdrus - El Djem - becoming larger and grander - Also present in most western provinces - Provincial contexts have different layouts - events may have been different than in Rome - bear baiting, public beatings, religious associations Circuses and Stadia - Important especially in the East and North Africa - divide between East and Western provinces - More interest in horse based activities in the East? Summary - Roman practice of architecture - Greek, Hellenistic, Etruscan and Carthaginian influences - Traditional preoccupations - building design, armatures, standard building types - Regional differences - Architectural spaces as culturally constructed - Buildings as a reflection of the actions of individuals negotiated through social interaction - Buildings as a means for creating social and political statements...