About this course: Roman Architecture is a course for people who love to travel and want to discover the power of architecture to shape politics, society, and culture.

Week 1: Introduction to Roman Architecture

Roman urbanism and introduction to the wide variety of Roman buildings covered in the course.

Technology and Revolution in Roman Architecture

The Revolution in Roman Architecture through the widespread adoption of opus caementicium (concrete) used for expressive as well as practical purposes.

Week 2: Civic Life interrupted: Nightmare and Destiny on August 24, A.D. 79

Civic, commercial, and religious buildings of Pompeii buried by the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and later rediscovered.

Habitats at Herculaneum and Early Roman Interior Decoration

What befell the city of Herculaneum’s inhabitants when they tried to escape Vesuvius

Week 3: Gilding the Lily: Painting Palaces and Villas in the First Century A.D.

Third Style Roman wall painting in villas belonging to elite patrons. Third Style painting is characterized by departure from perspectival vistas and return to a flat wall decorated with panel pictures and attenuated architectural elements.

Week 4: From Brick to Marble: Augustus Assembles Rome

Transformation of Rome by Augustus. Claiming to have found Rome a city of brick and leaving it a city of marble, Augustus exploited marble quarries at Luna (modern Carrara) to build his Forum, decorating it with replicas of Greek caryatids associating his era with Periclean Athens. The contemporary Ara Pacis served as the Luna marble embodiment of Augustus’ new hegemonic empire.

Week 5: The Creation of an Icon: The Colosseum and Contemporary Architecture in Rome

The Flavian dynasty of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Vespasian linked himself to Divus Claudius by completing the Claudianum, distanced himself from Nero by destroying part of the Domus Aurea, filling in the artificial lake and replacing it with the Colosseum. Titus commissioned Rome's first preserved example of the "imperial bath type," characterized by grand scale, axiality, and symmetry.

Week 6: The Mother of All Forums: Civic Architecture in Rome under Trajan

Trajan’s monumental architecture in Rome references his expansion of the Roman Empire to its furthest reaches.

Week 7: Bigger is Better: The Baths of Caracalla and Other Second-and Third-Century Buildings in Rome

Exploration of a "bigger is better" philosophy; exposed brick tombs with painted stucco and architectural elements; the Temple of Divine Antoninus Pius and Faustina and its post-antique afterlife as the Church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda; the earliest surviving triple-bayed Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum; the Septizodium, a lively baroque-style façade for Domitian's Palace on the Palatine Hill; and the colossal Baths of Caracalla

Week 8: Roman Wine in Greek Bottles: The Rebirth of Athens

The rebirth of Athens under Rome’s foremost philhellenic emperors, Augustus and Hadrian.

Week 9: Rome Redux: The Tetrarchic Renaissance

Except for the Aurelian Walls, Rome’s third century was an "architectural wasteland.” Diocletian created a new form of government called the Tetrarchy (four-man rule) with leaders in East and West.