Architecture In Roman Architecture

When one thinks of Roman architecture, many things come to mind, such as arches, columns, statues, and richly covered surfaces in marbles. One must stop to think that this empire, which gained power and influence in the first century BC, must have been influenced from the thousands of years of cultures preceding them in order to create their masterpieces of ingenuity. This phenomenon can be seen in our borrowing of ideas of ancient Greece and Rome for the construction of our capitol buildings in the United States. The Romans surely considered design principles of other cultures when developing their buildings, since daily conquests of new lands opened Roman soldiers’ eyes to innovations from the great vastness of their empire. This

The Roman Empire is credited with the development of many great achievements. These achievements can still be seen in Rome and throughout the world. The Romans are well known for their aqueduct system and huge colosseum that are still standing today. These monumental building feats would not have been created without the use and knowledge of many different techniques. The use of cement was one of the technologies employed to build these large structures. The utilization of arches was another. Many people associate the idea of arches with the Romans. However, they were not the first people to utilize arches. This paper will concentrate on why the Romans were credited with developing the arch; what they did to improve previous cultures use of arches; and how the Romans used arches to create massive structures that are still standing today.

Unlike concrete, the Roman's did not invite the arch, the first known arches were actually

For example, in Ancient Rome, most of the buildings were build be using columns, therefore, the buildings were more reliable. In many of our buildings today you see this same columns used in buildings in our society today. For instance, “You can see the influence of Roman architecture in government buildings, large banks, and even some famous buildings like the United States Capitol Building (Ducksters).” A building that the Romans built that also takes a big part in our society today is the Pantheon. The Pantheon was built in the shape of a dome, and was built to honor every god the Romans worshipped.

One of Roman Engineering’s greatest accomplishments was the use of the arch. The arch shape is very strong, able to support great amounts of weight. This allowed Romans to build massive structures that would stand for many centuries. The Romans adapted the arch design to fit many purposes. The barrel vault is merely an elongated arch; this was used for buildings tombs and sewers. The dome is an adaptation of the arch. The dome is an arch revolved on its vertical axis. The best example of the dome in ancient Rome is the Pantheon. The basic arch was used in almost every large building in Rome. Romans also used

The purpose of this ORTO is to illustrate the extend to which Roman architecture, from the late 2nd centaury BC to the 4th century AD, had an influence and effect of modern western architecture. Therefore the aims of my ORTO are as follows:

The romans borrowed the idea of the arch from the Greeks but put their own spin on it. The romans used the Greeks “three orders of architecture, Doric, Ionic, and Corintian, which was based on different columns and added something

“The Romans retained many ideas about buildings from their Etruscan predecessors, but they also absorbed some of the ideas of the Greek that were passed onto them by the Etruscans” (Bleiberg, 2005). When looking back in time, the basic style of architecture that the Greek, Roman and Etruscans used was different but also similar in a few ways such as techniques, materials, structures, etc. For instance, when Roman architectures began to build their first temple of their time, they based the structure off the Etruscans temple. Due to the fact that their structures promoted an openness to them unlike the Greek temples. When looking at these styles closer, the Greek architecture was known for their use of columns and colonnade, but the Roman architecture was known for their use of arches and vaults.

The Romans engrossed some crucial know-how from the Etruscans. The article states “this included the “arch” and the ”vault”, which were destined to carry Roman engineering into a development directly away from that of ancient Greece” (Roman architecture [sa]). The vaulting techniques used by the Romans were the simple geometric forms: the groin vault, the segmental vault, and the semi-circular barrel vault. The vault surfaces were customarily covered with stucco or tiles as recommended construction techniques.

The Roman Empire was one of the strongest empires and one of the ways that they were able to show that power was with their architecture. One of the most interesting pieces of architecture from the Roman period is the Pont Du Gard. The Pont Du Gard serves as an aqueduct to transport water from the springs to the city. The impressive part is that it is still standing today and it was made very precisely using stones. If you did not know it serves as an aqueduct it could very easily be a magnificent structure with the arch’s serving as the viewpoint. The arches are used to support the structure but they also help beautify the structure and make you think why they added arches and also why they are all different sizes. The very bottom of the structure

Roman architecture has influenced many building designs such as the amphitheater or as we call it today the stadium. Without the

However, Roman temples commonly have single or maybe double row of columns on the front only. And the construction method of Roman is Arch that originated from Etruria. Arch is an upside-down of U-shape, and it directs the downward force that allows holding all the weight. The multiple arches create together as vaults and domes that used to build large distinctive open spaces such as the interior of Pantheon (Fig.2). We see that Roman easily created circular and complex shapes onto the building with arches unlike Greek applied on rectangular features.

Roman arches are of great importance, not only to Rome but to the world as a whole. The arch was not invented by the Romans, as arches have been used in cultures far predating the Romans; however, the Romans did find a way to perfect the arch. Before the Romans, arches were used to support relatively small amounts of weight, such as in storerooms, these arches limited the scale of buildings they supported. The Romans however used arches to support immense amounts of weight. The reason for the arches newfound strength lies not with the shape of the arch, but within the material used to construct it. Through the invention of concrete, Romans were able to construct arches that would hold the weight of structures such as the aqueduct, which provided water to entire cities. Soon, several cultures adopted the Roman arch to support their own

You can see this for example on the front of the Pantheon where its columns remain attached to the building even though they can be removed. Another great example of how the Romans wanted the structures to have a traditional feel is on the walls of the Colosseum, were the columns are attached to the walls and floors as decoration. You can also recognize the Greek influence on Roman architecture in buildings such as the Roman baths, where the first evidenced bath was located in Magna Garcia established by the Greek colonies. During the Augustan period there was a outpouring of new buildings that included the use of finer materials like marble. The buildings also advanced in design and size. In that time Roman buildings were considered strong and superior to any other architectural structure across the Empire. The Romans were able to take ideas such as bath structures, arches, and domes, push them to their fullest potential in design. Soon the Romans had major influence on craftsmen who integrated Roman architectural ideas and their use of materials.

The ancient Romans created and borrowed fundamental types of concepts that made up buildings. The ideas that the Romans borrowed were basic ideas such as the column. A column is a vertical shaped pillar with the chief design concern of supporting a building. Most columns consist of three parts, the base, the shaft, and the capital. The shaft is usually cylindrical in shape. The Greeks had three basic types of columns, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. All three types have narrow fillets on them. These were small vertical slits that ran the length of the column. The Romans modified the column and added two types, Truscan and Composile. The columns became widely used in homes and temples in Greece and later in Rome ("Architecture").