Architecture 200 :: History of Ideas in Architecture I

Study Guide :: Unit 3

Architecture as Power Imagery: Imperial Rome, Han China, and Mesoamerica, 200 BCE–200 CE

In this unit we examine a group of buildings that reinforce systems of governance, particularly associated with the formation of imperial states conquering new territories on a vast scale: the Hellenistic/Roman expansion both west and east, the Han expansion through the central plains of China, and expansive empires in Central and South America.

New technologies of war, trade, and transport parallel new building technologies. New architectural types are invented and traditional ones are refined. The Romans utilize to great effect new concrete masonry technology that is applied in the construction of temples, palaces, forums, theatres, aqueducts, and baths. The Chinese, on flood plains subject to seismic events, perfect reinforced-timber construction on compacted earth platforms. The lost tomb of the Persian king Mausolus at Halicarnassus is so huge and imposing that his name is given to the tomb type: mausoleum. Roman emperors, claiming divine as well as earthly dominion, erect massive tomb monuments to themselves (Augustus and Hadrian in Rome) and, via formal state-sponsored temple building (Pantheon and Baalbeck), assert their control through an imperial religion.

This is all summed up by Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus’s description of Emperor Constantius’s state entry to Rome in 357 CE.

So then he entered Rome, the home of empire and of every virtue, and when he had come to the Rostra, the most renowned forum of ancient dominion, he stood amazed; and on every side on which his eyes rested he was dazzled by the array of marvelous sights. . .baths built up to the measure of provinces; the huge bulk of the amphitheatre. . .[Colosseum] to whose top human eyesight barely ascends; the Pantheon. . .vaulted over in lofty beauty; and the exalted heights [triumphal columns] which. . .bear the likenesses of former emperors [Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius]; the temple of the City [Venus and Rome], the Forum of Peace [dedicated 75 years after the Jewish war], the Theatre of Pompey, the Oleum, the Stadium. . . (Ronald Mellor, The Historians of Ancient Rome: An Anthology of the Major Writings (Routledge, 1997), p. 562)

Similar descriptions could have been written about the new imperial temple-palace cities being constructed from South America through North Africa to Japan.

Learning Objectives

• Focusing on Imperial Rome, Han China, and Aztec Central America (100 BCE–200 CE) describe how monumental building programs support imperialistic ideologies of governance.
• Learn how new technologies in travel, trade, and war spread ideas, construction technologies, and new building types across continents.

Learning Activities

• Recommended time to complete this unit: 2 weeks.
• Access the course home page for news and updates.
• Access and review the course-support websites.
• Check in with your Academic Expert.
• Read A Global History of Architecture, “0” and “200 CE.”
• Read the Study Guide case studies for this unit and the assigned readings for each; check the recommended online links.
• Continue to build your Journal.
• Answer five of the study questions at the end of this unit.
• Complete and submit Assignment 3: Review of a Scholarly Source.

Case Study 1

The Great Wall of China

Most of today’s Great Wall was built under the 15th-century Ming. The original was built under the emperor Ch’in (Qin) Shih-Huang Ti, who unified China in the 3rd century BCE. Ch’in’s wall followed on smaller, more fractured walls from the past few centuries. The Chinese and Roman empires (see, for example, Hadrian’s Wall, in England) had much in common. Both Ch'in China and Rome were military states, systematically organized for war, tightly disciplined, famed for stern public servants and dedicated soldiery. Great walls were intended to be symbolic, mythical statements of presence to outsiders more than militarily effective barriers.

Nomadic Mongol tribes were seen as a threat in that they embodied for the Ch’in and Han dynasties the quintessential “barbarians.” Indeed, the Mongols’ skill with horses gave them a military advantage that would, under Chengiz (Ghengis) Khan, not only yield China to them but take them to the very doors of Europe. The Chinese response to the Mongol threat was to reach for a radical option that could only be mounted by a highly organized empire—the creation of a vast defensive wall. Most of the Ch’in and Han sections of the Great Wall were made of pounded earth and paved with stones. Some parts, however, were made of Chinese tamarisk and reeds that were arranged in a checkerboard pattern and then filled with sand and stone.

Case Study 2

Mingtang and Biyong Ritual Complex, near Xian, China

Designs for this complex (141–86 BCE) were based on the intersection of the heavenly circle and the earthly square, a diagrammatic expression of Han imperial philosophy and of the rule of god-emperors. These were timber constructions on a compressed-earth platform built to accommodate sacrificial rituals to the deities of the earth, rivers, heavens, mountains, sun, moon, stars, and planets—all essential elements of the Han cosmology, in which the emperor ruled by divine mandate as the son of heaven.

Case Study 3

Teotihuacán Near Mexico City, Mexico

The Maya called the city Puh but the the Aztecs later called it Teotihuacán, the “place where men become gods.” Built between 100 BCE and 250 CE, at its height it was a city of 125,000. An astronomical organization of the site symbolizing cosmic harmony focuses on a processional axial path, the Avenue of the Dead, aligned with the Solar Temple. The city includes the Pyramid of the Moon and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl. There is some evidence that a chambered cave in the area may have led to the rapid growth of the city. Caves were “portals to the underworld,” important in the religions of that region and celebrated with elaborate fire and water rituals. The city was destroyed and then abandoned during the 7th century CE. The size and scale of Teotihuacán demonstrate the utility of combining secular and religious power.

Case Study 4

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (Vitruvius), De architectura, Rome

In English: On Architecture, published as Ten Books on Architecture

Around the year 15 BCE Vitruvius compiled his Ten Books on Architecture, a wide-ranging and sometimes critical account of Roman building practices and techniques. The books codified the principles of good architecture as firmitas (durability), utilitas (usefulness), and venustas (beauty), and maintained that good design depends on fitness, arrangement, proportion, uniformity, consistency, and economy. Vitruvius’s book is the only surviving document from what was probably extensive Roman discourse on the subject.

Case Study 5

Bel (Jupiter) Temple, Baalbek, Lebanon

The Temple of Bel, originally built by the Phoenicians, was dedicated to Jupiter when the Romans took possession in the first century CE. It was part of a complex begun ca. 50 CE under Claudius, to put a Roman stamp on Rome’s new eastern province of Syria. Other buildings in the complex, dedicated to Bacchus and Venus, were added later. In the 2nd century CE, richly elaborate architectural fronts that had once been associated with the prosceniums of theatres come out into public space. A well thought-out scheme is demonstrated at the court of this temple at Baalbek.

Case Study 6

Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre), Rome, Italy

Or The Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin = Amphitheatrum Flavium; Italian = Anfiteatro Flavio or Colosseo)

Built in 72–80 CE, the Colosseum was the biggest theatre in the Ancient world; it seated 40–50,000 spectators. It remained in use until the 6th century, and was then abandoned, its walls shattered by earthquakes. On the interior floor, devices for flooding the space (for mock naval battles) can still be recognized, and there are underground corridors for the transportation of wild animals and gladiators to the stage. The Colosseum has been through earthquakes, fires, and lootings, but today still conveys its one-time grandeur and can even, up to a point, be used for certain open-air functions. This is thanks in part to the strength of its concrete vaults and the skill of the engineers who designed and organized a building on this scale. Ornamentation is at a minimum; the capitals were stripped to their elemental form to keep them from becoming just ornaments. The masses of stone that came down in earthquakes in 1231 CE and 1349 CE provided Rome with building material for more than four centuries.

Case Study 7

Trajan’s Column and Forum, Rome, Italy

In Italian = Colonna Traiana (column) and Latin = Forum Traiani (forum)

Built from 107 to 113 CE, this grouping included the Temple to Divine Hadrian, a triumphal column to the Dacian wars, the Basilica Ulpia (122m by 61m wide), and the Forum proper. The Forum was actually the culmination of a series of early (incorporated) forums, and was the seat of Roman religious and secular governance. The free-standing column, an unusual feature in its own right, was also unusual for Roman architecture insofar as it interrupted the axial flow to the temple. But the column also highlights the central role of the Forum as a war memorial. Sculptures and relief panels show the campaigns and triumphs of the emperor. It has been suggested that the unusual design of the Forum comes from the fact that it emulates the central administrative area of a military camp.

Case Study 8

The Pantheon, Rome, Italy

From a Greek adjective meaning “to every god”

The Pantheon (Hadrian's Pan ton Theon = Temple to All the Gods) was built in 126 CE under the guise of the restoration of an earlier Pantheon begun under Augustus in 27 BCE. Hadrian's Pantheon was a triumph of domical engineering and represented the climax of Roman imperial monuments: here was full-blown Roman emperor worship.

Case Study 9

Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli, Italy

In Italian = Villa Adriana

Built between 118 and 134 CE, this Roman imperial hilltop townhouse, garden, and temple complex was intended to evoke memories of Hadrian’s travels and conquests in distant lands, particularly Greece. Constructed in a freewheeling texture, and built in several phases, the buildings constitute a type of vast experimentation on the subject of architecture, landscape, ritual, marble, water, and memory. There are dozens of distinct elements separated from one another in the landscape and yet linked in purposefully surprising ways—one could almost say they are hinged to one another so that the whole design seems to unfold in relationship to both the program and the site.

Case Study 10

Baths of Caracalla, Rome, Italy

In Italian = Terme di Caracalla

Built between 212 and 216 CE this brick construction was on an even grander scale than the later Baths of Diocletian (298–306 CE). Although secular and social spaces open to all classes of citizens, such baths were, like stadiums, also propaganda in support of the all-powerful, benevolent imperium.

Case Study 11

Diocletian’s Palace, Split, Dalmatia, Croatia

In Croatian = Dioklecijanova palača

Completed in 305 CE, this was villa, temple, palace, city, and fortress all in one. Though it might appear large, its footprint is quite compact, not much bigger than an imperial bath. There was also detailed rational planning on a vast scale for a retirement home and an imperial outpost. In the decades before Diocletian became emperor, there were no less than 20 emperors proclaimed by the Senate and at least as many usurpers and pretenders. To prevent usurpation of the throne, Diocletian fundamentally changed the Roman Empire, which had implications for the rest of Europe. The empire was split in two, and then into two again. Diocletian governed the Asiatic part of the empire and Egypt from Nicomedia.

Study Questions

Choose five of the study questions to answer.

1. Choose two case studies from the Study Guide for this unit. Find their sections in A Global History of Architecture, and then examine two online resources covering each of these cases. What is the difference in the organization of information, point of view, analysis, emphasis, visualization, and use of sources between your print textbook and the online media?
2. During this period (Ch’in, Qin, and Han China, Imperial Rome, and Mesoamerica) we see religion put to the service of governance, and architecture used in support of this cause, as god-emperors emerge to rule over stratified societies variously subscribing to individual ethics-based religious beliefs. Yet different societies, and ages, do this differently. Compare and contrast how belief and power are expressed in the Xianyan Palace and the Mingtang and Biyong Complex in China; Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli; and Trajan’s Forum, Rome.
3. By the time Emperor Trajan completed the Forum in Rome (ca. 113 CE), the whole complex embodied at least four previous forums. By means of an annotated plan, trace its main periods of development and the component parts added at each stage.
4. This was the age of imperial states with aggressive colonial expansionist ambitions, the two dominant in the world order being Rome and China. Explain, giving examples, how these two imperial powers used architecture differently to control and define their colonial outposts.
5. Between 200 BCE and 300 CE large urban concentrations developed the world over. One feature of these early cities was the integration of sacred and secular spaces. Explain the similarities and differences in how this was expressed in Teotihuacán, Diocletian’s fortress palace in Roman Split, and the Chinese Mingtang and Biyong Complex.
6. The Romans excelled in the provision of civic amenities—everything from roads and sewers to stadiums and baths. Using a sketch plan of the Baths at Caracalla as an example, indicate the different spaces there, their use, and how this type of building served as both a public amenity and a vehicle for state propaganda.
7. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (ca. 70–15 BCE) compiled a treatise on Roman building practices called The Ten Books on Architecture. Although probably more influential when they were re-discovered just in time to fuel the European classical renaissance more than 1,000 years later, the books do document to some extent the thought and practice of the time. Looking, for example, at Diocletian’s Palace in Split, and with the aid of an annotated plan, explain how this fortress/city/temple/palace complex might exhibit Vitruvius’s founding principles of good architecture: firmitas (durability), utilitas (usefulness), and venustas (beauty), and good design depending on fitness, arrangement, proportion, uniformity, consistency, and economy.
8. The Romans invented and perfected the use of concrete, while the Chinese built primarily using compacted-earth platforms supporting wooden structures. Why the difference in materials and method? What was it about geography and climate that might have prompted the development of these quite different building technologies?

Assignment for Credit

Complete Assignment 3 before proceeding to Unit 4.