Essentials Of Roman Architecture

Building an Empire

What you'll learn
Students will learn the key developments, vocabulary terms, and works of art which are associated with Roman architecture.
Students will be able to recognize major Roman monuments.
Students will gain an appreciation of the engineering advances that contributed to the success of the Roman Empire.
A comprehensive vocabulary list is found at the end of the course.
Requirements
Students who have completed the preceding course "Faces of Rome: Kingdom, Republic and Empire" will be most prepared to appreciate the broad view of how art developed in the ancient world, but this course also can stand alone and provide a solid grounding in Roman architecture.
Description
The Romans transformed Europe, North Africa, the Near East, and every place which became absorbed in their expansive empire. Roman rule was synonymous with Roman architecture; wherever they went, they built in conformity with a recognizably Roman style of architecture. The handmaiden to Rome’s stunning military conquest of an unprecedented swathe of the ancient world- three continents, the entire Mediterranean basin, and a sizeable portion of the British island- was its capacity to build on a massive scale, erecting impressive yet cost-effective constructions across its empire which marked the appearance and the identity of these regions and diverse people as Romans. As we saw with Roman artwork, the genius of Rome lay in assimilating their conquered subjects’ artistic and technological skills to the service of empire, and by turn, Roman art and architecture came to be composed of different elements which became merged and served as the foundation for further innovations. This homogenizing effect of Roman architecture echoed the same message as that of contemporary visual arts: Roman architecture became the language of power and domination for antiquity and beyond. Roman architecture and engineering transformed Europe, North Africa, Asia Minor, the Levant, and wherever Romans established a foothold. Roman architecture tied these disparate regions and people even after the collapse of the empire which had originally unified them. The longevity of Roman construction, infrastructure, and cultural markers is testament to the extraordinary ambition of the Romans to place the world at large under their command and control. When this vision frayed at the edges and then began to entirely unravel, their architectural innovations survived and inspired entirely new people and civilizations to aspire to the glory that once was synonymous with Rome. This course explores the fundamentals of Roman building techniques and forms from Republic to Empire.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Building Rome, Anywhere

Section 2: A New Language of Architecture

Lecture 2 The Amazing Arch

Lecture 3 Roman Altars and Temples

Lecture 4 Engineering Wonders in Concrete

Lecture 5 The Roman Forum

Lecture 6 Public and Private Spaces with Course Vocabulary Review

High school, university, and graduate students will find both a review of key pieces and developments as well as original research and connections which are exclusive to this course.