Roman City Planning Essay

Ancient Rome is one of the greatest and most influential societies in the history of the world. From the basic rules of how the Roman Empire is set up to the infrastructures in the city, the strict hierarchy of Roman social structure can be reflected clearly all over the whole ancient Rome. In fact that “public architecture presents people with the official view of a society and provides the background against which its individual markers live their lives.”1 With the great desire of Roman for entertainment and their special taste for blood, the amphitheatre is considered as the most popular and most representative type of the entertainment building in the ancient Roman culture. And

At the heart of a Roman city laid the forum- a large open space surrounded by markets, government buildings and temples. Rich and poor gathered together in the bustling forum and at the baths, theaters, and arenas.

In document 8, the “flowing aqueducts” of the Roman Empire greatly increased the ability for people to live in very condensed areas, and therefore making the empire more efficient by allowing more people to live in smaller areas. The elected officials in each respected empire noted that, because of the technological advances, the empress benefited. Thus showing that the ideas of man to invent and reinvent are not always broken causes. Document 6 states that, the romans had very advanced roads built, roads built to last thousands of years. “For the roads were built to carry straight through the country without wavering and were paved with quarried stone and made solid by tightly packed sand.” This quote shows that, because of how technologically advanced the Romans were, they were able to build these roads, roads that still last

Greek and Roman architecture is truly amazing. They each had great ideas, and fabulous productions. It is said that the Pantheon is to Italy what the Parthenon is to Greece. Both are tremendous monuments that reek of culture and history. Each had a purpose which was displayed by the design and construction of each. There are such great meanings behind each of these architecural structures. The Romans and the Greeks alike worshipped and dedicated their structures and designs to the Gods and Goddess they believed in.

Many centuries before the birth of Christ, the city of Rome grew, prospered, and developed into a thriving Republic. As in most cultures, Rome's buildings became more elaborate and impressive. They developed fantastic building technologies and ideas. The feats of Roman engineers were groundbreaking, and many structures built by this culture still stand today. With knowledge borrowed from the Greeks, Rome made impressive architectural achievements, these were namely major attributes of buildings, colossal structures, and a legacy that would influence later buildings (Cornell and Matthews 11).

Called the “Eternal City,” Rome emerged as the capital city of a powerful Republic at about 508 BC. Roman culture was greatly influenced by that of Greece, and Rome too emerged as a center of art and literature while also making vast contributions to the development of technology, war, law, and architecture in the Western world. With the Roman Empire’s dominance over most of Europe, the city of Rome became and remained the richest, largest, and most politically important city in the Western world for almost a thousand years, clearly defining it as world city that made its mark on the pages of history. This great wealth was demonstrated through the luxurious nature of the society, which included numerous intricate and architecturally stunning public baths. Another example of Rome’s extensive resources and capabilities is the Roman Coliseum, which represented a feat of architecture and engineering at the time and was used for all sorts of spectator events. Rome also became known for its close ties with the Catholic Church, being established as the center of the Church by the Pope and remaining a “holy city” for centuries. Eventually the illustrious Roman Empire declined due to a combination of economic problems, which gradually affected the empire, and invasions, which were its ultimate downfall. With the end of the Roman Empire came the end of Rome’s capital status, which was transferred instead to Milan. Despite eventually losing this

The developments in planning and design of urban cities inform the argument surrounding the unsuitability of grids to carfree cities, whose medieval patterns provided efficient radial routes for centrally located goods, services, and transport. The emergence of city planning as a profession borrows significantly from the long and complex history of planning, whereby all cities display variations in forethought and conscious designs that define their layout and functioning. The paper uses Rome as a case study to analyse and critique the concepts and principles in the history of urban planning and design, and their

Standing on the portico of the Temple of the Deified Julius Caesar facing towards the Temple you can see the large columns that are made in the Ionic order. Facing away from the entrance you will see the Rostra of Diocletian. The Rostra of Diocletian was a large platform that sat 12 meters by 30 meters in size. Speakers would stand on the Rostra and would deliver their speech to those present. Behind the Rostra of Diocletian, you see the city’s center known as the Forum Romanum or the Roman Forum. The Forum Romanum was the Romans center for their public life, this site held many public speeches, criminal trials, markets, religious cults, and entertainment. Some of the focal features of the Forum Romanum were the temples of many gods and goddesses.

The Forum of Trajan was constructed by the Greek architect Apollodorus of Damascus near the forums of Augustus and Julius Caesar. Like many of his predecessors, Trajan built his forum in order to mark Rome as the imperial center of the empire. The many fora with their marvelous feats of architecture were intended to be impressive to both the Roman citizens and any outsiders. Within Trajan’s Forum (Appendix Figure 1) stood the Basilica Ulpia, the Greek and Latin Libraries, the Column of Trajan, the Temple of Trajan and Trajan’s Markets. The complex follows an axial plan that leads from the Forum of Augustus, through an arch and into the Forum’s courtyard area. From the courtyard, the complex continues with the Basilica Ulpia, then

They began to form a new Rome by fusing the Etruscan people with the natives throughout the country. "Rome became recognizable a city; it also acquired some of the features which characterized Greek city-states and distinguished them from other less-civilized communities, in particular a well-defined legendary past, a carefully formulated religion and a disciplined citizen army" (Ogilvie 33). The Etruscans slowly and gradually with success formed many of the key foundations of the Rome that you hear about today. The city turned from a city of mud dwellings to buildings being made of products such as brick, clay, and stucco. The city had aligned streets, although not calculated using math due to the severe differences in its landscape. Public Buildings were built for the purposes of markets and meeting areas. The Etruscans slowly built Rome into a metropolis in the sense of the world today.

Historians have always used great structures from the ancient world to find out information about the kind of lives they used to live. The Colosseum in Ancient Rome, Italy was one of the most famous structures. The Colosseum in Rome gives historians a number of insights to the type of civilization that existed during the time of the ancient empire, through the gory battles and violent games that took place. This can be proven by the purpose of the Colosseum and the context surrounding its construction, the political and economic benefit of the Colosseum to the empire, the types of games which were held in the arena and the values which the structure suggests were important to the civilization at the

This new building type differed in striking ways from the traditional Greek theater. The latter consisted of two separate structures: a horseshoe-shaped seating area and a freestanding stage-building. The Roman theater, in contrast, was a fully enclosed edifice, unroofed but often covered with awnings on performance days. The seating area in the Greek theater was supported against a natural hillside, whereas the Roman theater was carried at least in part on concrete vaults, which provided access from the exterior of the building to the cavea. In the Hellenistic world, the stage-building was a relatively low structure, ornamented with painted panels but rarely with large-scale sculpture.

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

Architecture of the ancient Roman Empire is one of the most fascinating of all time. The city of Rome once housed more than one million residents. The Romans made great use of many architectural shapes like arches and columns. Using these they were able to build monstrous buildings of worship, entertainment and other services. The one building that comes in mind over the centuries, when you think of Rome is The Amphitheatrum Flavium or The Coloseum.

The aisled villa is just a villa built in the simple shape of a long