College of Environmental Design
Department of Architecture, UC Berkeley
Architecture Slide Library
Fall 1995 James Study Aid 11
Roman Urbanism
I. Cities of the Roman Empire, 1st century BCE - 4th century CE. Roman equation of urbanization and civilization. network of roads and water projects that stitched the empire together. For example the aqueduct known as the Pont du Gard, Nimes, France late first century BCE. Prototype plan of a military camp, or castrum, grid plan radiating from the intersection of the main north-south (cardo) and the east-west (decumanus) streets. Trier (Germany) and Timgad (Algeria), 100 CE. Castrum type imposed on unurbanized colonial territory; existing cities were Romanized through addition of characteristic civic architecture and improvement of infrastructure. Walled cities entered through gates such as Arch of the Borsari, Verona (Italy), c 70 CE and Porta Nigra, Trier, early 4th century CE.
II. Domestic architecture, Pompeii (Italy). Roman house called a domus: stores flanking a vestibule opening in turn onto an atrium with a garden in the rear. House of the Vetii, renovated 1st century CE, a particularly highly decorated example also had a peristyle. Casa di Diana, an insula, or an apartment house, Ostia (Italy), c 150 CE; organized around a central court.
III. Major streets marked by commemorative arches and by colonnades. Paved streets with sidewalks.
IV. Civic architecture. Baths of Caracalla, Rome, 212-216 CE: sequence of hot, tepid, and cold baths; major gathering space featuring variety of room shapes and heights, and set atop heating system. Severan forum, Leptis Magna, 216 CE, containing temple, shops, and a basilica which featured apsed (round-ended) nave (central hall) and side aisles (flanking corridors). Conversion of spatial innovation in brick converted into stone here and in Sanctuary forecourt of Temple of Jupiter and Temple of Bacchus, Baalbek (Lebanon) c 150 CE. Forecourt and temple interior (cella) feature giant order of columns. Richer ornament characteristic of architecture of the eastern empire and influenced by Hellenistic precedent.
V. Beyond the empire? the Deir, Petra (Jordon), mid 1st century CE. One of the enormous, entirely unstructural tomb facades cut into the live rock in the canyons above the city.
Casto Edward Vocal Jr.
World Wide Web Authorer.
Department of Architecture, Slide Library
University of California, Berkeley
Send comments on page design to:
castojr@ced.berkeley.edu
This site last revised on Feburary 5, 1996