Introduction - Roman architecture stands today as a

testament to the ability and grandeur of this once

great civilization that ,at one time, covered three
continents. Their great theaters and amphitheaters
were wonders that could seat thousands of people
and are still impressive ,both in size and volume,
today. As well, their road and bridges were
constructed so well that many are still in use today.
A unified architecture form gave the Roman empire
a common thread and Roman ruins can be found in
places so diverse as Britain and Egypt.

HISTORY -

The Architecture of Ancient Rome adopted the

external Greek architecture around 12th century B.C.
for their own purposes, creating a new architectural
style. The Romans absorbed Greek influence,
apparent in many aspects closely related to
architecture; for example, this can be seen in the
introduction and use of the Triclinium in Roman
villas as a place and manner of dining. The Romans,
similarly, were indebted to their Etruscan neighbors
and forefathers who supplied them with a wealth of
knowledge essential for future architectural
solutions, such as hydraulics and in the construction
of arches.
Social elements such as wealth and high population
densities in cities forced the ancient Romans to
discover new (architectural) solutions of their own.
The use of vaults and arches together with a sound
knowledge of building materials, for example,
enabled them to achieve unprecedented successes in
the construction of imposing structures for public
use. Examples include the aqueducts of Rome, the
Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla, the
basilicas and Colosseum. They were reproduced at
smaller scale in most important towns and cities in
the Empire. Some surviving structures are almost
complete, such as the town walls of Lugo in
Hispania Tarraconensis, or northern Spain.
Political propaganda demanded that these buildings
should be made to impress as well as perform a
public function.[citation needed] The Romans didn't feel
restricted by Greek aesthetic axioms alone in order
to achieve these objectives.[citation needed] The Pantheon
is a supreme example of this, particularly in the
version rebuilt by Hadrian and which still stands in
its celestial glory as a prototype of several other
great buildings of Eastern architecture. The same
emperor left his mark on the landscape of northern
Britain when he built a wall to mark the limits of the
empire, and after further conquests in Scotland, the
Antonine wall was built to replace Hadrian's Wall.

MATERIAL USED -
Tile covered concrete quickly supplanted marble as
the primary building material and more daring
buildings soon followed, with great pillars
supporting broad arches and domes rather than dense
lines of columns suspending flat architraves. The
freedom of concrete also inspired the colonnade
screen, a row of purely decorative columns in front
of a load-bearing wall. In smaller-scale architecture,
concrete's strength freed the floor plan from
rectangular cells to a more free-flowing
environment. Most of these developments are ably
described by Vitruvius writing in the first century
AD in his work De Architectura.
Frigidarium of Baths of Diocletian, today Santa
Maria degli Angeli
Roman architects invented Roman concrete and used
it in buildings where it could stand on its own and
support a great deal of weight. The first use of
concrete by the Romans was in the town of Cosa
sometime after 273 BC. Ancient Roman concrete
was a mixture of lime mortar, pozzolana, water, and
stones, and stronger than previously-used concrete.
The ancient builders placed these ingredients in
wooden frames where it hardened and bonded to a
facing of stones or (more frequently) bricks. When
the framework was removed, the new wall was very
strong with a rough surface of bricks or stones. This
surface could be smoothed and faced with an
attractive stucco or thin panels of marble or other
coloured stones called revetment. Concrete
construction proved to be more flexible and less
costly than building solid stone buildings. The
materials were readily available and not difficult to
transport. The wooden frames could be used more
than once, allowing builders to work quickly and
efficiently.
On return from campaigns in Greece, the general
Sulla returned with what is probably the most well-
known element of the early imperial period: the
mosaic, a decoration of colourful chips of stone inset
into cement. This tiling method took the empire by
storm in the late first century and the second century
and in the Roman home joined the well known
mural in decorating floors, walls, and grottoes in
geometric and pictorial designs.
Romans, developed empirical methods for designing arches which still stand
more than 2,000 Though
most would consider concrete
the Roman contribution most relevant to the modern
world, the Empire's style of architecture can still be
seen throughout Europe and North America in the
arches and domes of many governmental and
religious buildings.
Introduction: art or engineering?

During the last decades of the XVIIIth century and

for almost the whole XIXth century the views of J.
J. Winckelmann (Reflections on the Painting and
Sculpture of the Greeks) were regarded as absolute
truth; according to them, Arches

Structure of an arch (Porta Asinaria

Greek art of the period 480-323 BC (Classical
period) was the peak reached by the Ancient
World: what came after was called Hellenistic and
dismissed as decadent.
This negative view included the works of art of the
Roman Empire which were thought to be just
copies of the patterns established during the
Classical period. When they departed from those
patterns they were labelled as extravagant and
lacking harmony.
The recognition Ancient Romans did not receive
from art historians came from modern engineers
who investigated and admired the construction
techniques the Romans used to build roads,
aqueducts, baths, tribunals, circuses, walls and
obviously temples and houses.

The Romans learned from the Etruscans the use of

arches to make large openings in a wall; the gates
of the Etruscan towns (see for example Arco
Etrusco at Perugia) show the first examples of
arch. The laws of Physics explaining the conditions
required for an arch not to collapse were not fully
understood until the XIXth century; yet the
Etruscans, and after them the years later.

Ponte Quattro Capi.