When it comes to Roman architecture there is A LOT to be said. First of all let me tell you something about their history. Roman, or Rome people inhabited almost everything from other cultures, from Greeks, their ancestors Etruscan and from others. Rome had a capitol in city 'Rome'. They were the strongest and the biggest empire in their time. Their empire lasted for over 1000 years. They had magnificent buildings.
Roman people inhabited arc and the idea of aqueduct from Etruscan people.
The Rome country was made by the two people (as legend says).
The legend goes that two brothers (one was named Rome) were adopted by the wolf. And that one day they made a city Rome.
Now about their architecture.
First of all I have to say that they found much new building materials like concrete and brick.
Their brick was not sun-dried but was burned in high temperature ovens. They had a fabric which was massivly producing brick. That is the origin of the word "Fabric" because this is how they called it and it is the first fabric on the world.
Theirs concrete was made out of volcanic ash and other things, it was lite concrete.
They had a lot of engineers and architects so calculating and measuring was not a problem.
They were able to dry an entire lake like they did when they build a colosseum.
The colosseum was built on a place where was lake. That was the only suitable place where it could be built so they decided to dry the lake. They did it by guiding the water almost 100km using canals in a much more bigger lake.
The colosseum was built using brick and concrete and stone.
The Colosseum has three rings. First one is from stone, second from brick and the third is from concrete. This is because of the weight. Roman architect calculated that if the whole colosseum was made from stone it would crack and demolish it self from huge weight. The Colosseum was built mostly from arches on
pillars. It has 76 arches in every level of colloseum.
The colloseum was used for games, music, as theater.. and much more.
This was the most magnificent building of its time.
The Colosseum in Rome, in Italy
Roman people Housing
Their houses for general population were modest. Rich people lived a perfect life, they had it all.
In rich people houses were bathrooms. The roman people guided the water from mountains into and through their bathrooms. They had a toilets! And they also had public bath. There were pools with hot and warm and cold water. Public baths were aveable to everyone.
Poor people lived in "Insula" those were buildings on couple of floors. And those buildings were aranged in blocks. The darkest and the cheapest rooms were at bottom, and more lighter and cleaner rooms were at the top but cost more.
The windows were protected by metal bars. Life in insulas was difficult. Fire was the biggest problem.
In those tight rooms and tight building blocks when the fire appear it would burn the entire building block.
Roman Insula
The use of arch and cupola (duomo)
Like I said the Romans used arches in their many structures like Colosseum or aqueducts.
But what they were really were famous for are their domes. Since they were building with small pieces of material like bricks they were able to build such a structures.
Dome its self is beautiful when looked from beneath.
Their "Basilicas" were built with a dome. Basilicas were something like court houses. This is where they had trials going.
This was intro into Roman architecture and their history!
