Ancient Architecture: From Roman Innovations to Greek Orders
800 BCE – 500 BCE Ancient Rome
The Roman conception of reconstruction in antiquity can be characterized as ‘urban’, dampening the interest in the solving of the inner-city space by the composition of public buildings, parks, and palaces. In ancient Rome, urbanism was developed with its forums, streets, and public buildings such as the Colosseum, Circus Maximus, spas, and engineering structures: bridges, roads, aqueducts, etc.
Roman Innovations in Architecture
1. Arches, Vaults, and Domes: Romans perfected the use of arches, vaults, and domes, making it possible to build larger and more stable structures. Examples include The Colosseum (used arches extensively) and The Pantheon (known for its massive dome).
Roman Orders (Corinthian, Composite)
Composite: A combination of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, popular in Roman architecture.
Key Buildings
1. The Pantheon (Rome): Famous for its massive, unreinforced concrete dome and oculus (open circular hole at the top). It is circular with a central rotunda and portico (entrance area with columns).
2. The Colosseum (Rome): A monumental amphitheater with multiple levels of arches. It has a rectangular floor plan with tiered seating and entrances.
Roman Villas and Baths
Villa: Wealthy Romans lived in large, luxurious villas with central courtyards, colonnaded porticos, and open spaces.
Baths: The Romans built elaborate public bathhouses with advanced plumbing systems (hot and cold water).
Purism, Conservation, Analysis, Synthesis
Viollet-le-Duc was supported by Napoleon III to reconstruct many important buildings in France such as Carcassonne, Pierrefond, Notre Dame, etc. His work was criticized by many historians. They said that the completion of a building cannot be solved by the addition of copied parts ‘in the same style’ borrowed from similar monuments and for that reason considered suitable. This way was named PURISM.
In contrast with French Viollet-le-Duc worked Italian Camillo Boito. He shared the modern idea of the importance attaching to all evidence of a monument’s historical and artistic significance and the modern view that restoration should conserve and recover, as far as possible, all figurative and documentary elements that go to make up the significance of the monument as a whole. This way we call CONSERVATION.
ANALYSIS highlights the influence of individual epochs, but the building loses its unity. We don’t use it very much.
SYNTHESIS chooses only the best period of a building’s history and presents it now, but it loses a lot of newer parts. We don’t use it very much.
RESTORATION is taken for the attention now. Its aim is to preserve and reveal the aesthetic and historic value of the monument and is based on respect for the original material and authentic documents. It must stop at the point where conjecture begins.
REGENERATION is a natural part of each building, it’s the process of care of the building, permanent service, etc.
The Analysis of a Present Practice
1. The Urbanism of a City: We can recognize the history of a town.
2. The Silhouette of a City: Most authors present that the silhouette of a city is more important than its ground floor. The silhouette has a big influence on the identity of a place. But we should always remember that today’s city parts saved by the Monument care are a consequence of continuing building processes, often with radical destructions. And that’s why the building process shouldn’t be stopped even in time of heritage protection.
3. The Consideration of a Historic Scale: The integration into a surrounding scale (a proportion) also means respecting the history of the nearby buildings’ origin. But the section of a structure has to be developed from the inside. Just the superficial rhythmization of a facade often looks much worse than the big structure but well situated in a scene.
4. The Elimination of Gap Sites: The high art of completing gap sites consists in a design of a harmony of contrasting and connecting parts. The corner parcel we integrate very difficult. The architecture has to balance with two different sides of the block.
5. The Construction of Facades: If we are moving in a historic part of a city, first we see the exterior look. This way we can realize that nowadays the exterior parts are the only original. The composition of windows, door openings, roof, and decoration elements decides if the image of a city is in harmony.
6. The View from a Bird’s Perspective: Suddenly all things look differently. The colors, dimensions, and atmosphere are completely changed. The land of roofs from a burnt clay, which was in our countries very usual, we can assume as high aesthetic.
7. How to Separate Old and New: If we need to connect two different houses, we can add between them some integrating part, which should be neutral. In case of the row houses, sometimes we need to solve the high jumps of floors, sills, and windows. We resolve it by continuing in the axes and proportions and borrow important artistic reference points (ledges, a height of entrances).
8. A Material and a Construction: The historic building materials were a gift of a country. Only with an improvement in traffic possibilities, regional differences of used materials started to disappear. Glass facades are very often used because they work also as a mirror. Mirrored opposite facades grind a big flat surface.
Ancient Greece
1200 BCE – 600 BCE, Greek architecture also shows knowledge of the theories of proportion so significant in Egyptian architecture – the Golden Mean proportion, for example. The Parthenon at Athens, usually considered the most perfect of Greek temples (447 – 432 BCE), is planned with its two interior spaces each of the “Golden” 1:1.618 ratio. Greek houses were typically simple groupings of rooms around an open court. In cities, the houses were packed together along streets, the material was sun – baked brick or, sometimes, rough stone, with surfaces plastered or stuccoed and whitewashed. The Andron, a kind of vestibule parlor suggesting the form of the earlier megaron, is usually close to the entrance and was for the use of men – the owner and his friends. Beyond, the open court is surrounded by the Oecus, an all-purpose living and workspace, a kitchen and, beyond that, by bedrooms all forming the area used primarily by women and children.
Greek architecture is renowned for its column styles, known as Orders. Each order has its own distinct features, which you should be able to recognize and draw.
Doric Order: The simplest and most sturdy column. Features: Example: Parthenon in Athens.
Ionic Order: More slender and elegant than the Doric. Features: Example: Temple of Athena Nike in Athens.
Corinthian Order: The most ornate, often used in Roman architecture as well. Features: Example: Temple of Zeus in Olympia (Greece).
