La ciudad romana

Last week we started to talk about the roman cities and we watched a short documentary about a life in a roman city. The most important thing for me, that I actually looked pretty close was the "ESQUEMA IDEAL", the idea making the city in a grid, raster, to make an order. The first known architect and first urban planer that has based his idea on grid system was the Hippodamus de Milleto. He is considered as a father of the urban planing.

Hippodamus de Milleto

His plans of Greek cities were characterised by order and regularity in contrast to the intricacy and confusion common to cities of that period, even ATHENS. He is seen as the originator of the idea that a town plan might formally embody and clarify a rational social order. Ideal city with s forum in the center.

Plan of Hippodamus- grid system

Miletus in 150 CE

The important role in the roman city is to separate public and private. That means we have the private domus and on the other hand the public forums, basilica, temple, the first swimming pool komplex, theaters, circus etc. They followed their ideal organisation within the grid system. When analysing the city of Volubilis we already see the grid that it follows, on the other hand it is also terraced, so we have two systems. Also by further analysing of the Column house, which I have chosen, we see precise separation of the private left side of the house and the right side as the representative public side accessible to customers and people who were invited.

One other city that follow this logic is a city of greek Prienne, which was constructed in 4 century BC and lays in the southern part of the Turkish coast. The city was arranged into four districts, firstly the political district which consisted of the BOULETERION and the PRYTANEION, the cultural district containing the THEATER, the commercial where the AGORA was located and finally the religious district which contained sanctuaries dedicated to ZEUS and DEMETER and most importantly the Temple of Athena. 

Plan of the city of Prienne

Function Plan/ District plan

The last important building from these era, that I think represents the roman way of thinking is the MUSEO ROMANO MERIDA build by the architects Rafael MONEO in which we find archeological objects from the Roman city of the AUGUSTA EMERITA. I knew about the museum before and I like it because the architect tried to build the museum in the modern technique of the roman OPAS CAMENTICIUM. 

Museum in Merida

Axo