Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Residential Housing
While Rome's emperors and aristocrats lived in luxurious palaces on the Palatino (Palat-
ine Hill), the city's poor huddled together in large residential blocks called
insulae
. These
were huge, poorly built structures, sometimes up to six or seven storeys high, that accom-
modated hundreds of people in dark, unhealthy conditions. Little remains of these early
palazzi
but near the foot of the Aracoeli staircase − the steps that lead up to the Chiesa di
Santa Maria in Aracoeli - you can still see a section of what was once a typical city-centre
insula
.
Rome's Eataly complex is a masterclass in urban regeneration, bringing life back to a derelict train sta-
tion. Until the complex opened in 2012, the Air Terminal Ostiense, which had originally been designed to
serve airport trains arriving for the 1990 football World Cup, had been an abandoned shell.
Concrete & Monumental Architecture
Most of the ruins that litter modern Rome are the remains of the ancient city's big, show-
stopping monuments - the Colosseum, Pantheon, Terme di Caracalla, the Forums. These
grandiose constructions, still standing some 2000 years after they were built, are not only
reminders of the sophistication and intimidatory scale of ancient Rome - just as they were
originally designed to be - they are also monuments to the vision and bravura of the city's
ancient architects.
The Colosseum is not only an icon of Roman might, it is also a masterpiece of 1st-cen-
tury engineering. Similarly, the Pantheon, with its world-beating dome, is a wonderful ex-
ample of an imperial-age temple while also being a building of quite staggering structural
complexity.
One of the key breakthroughs the Romans made, and one that allowed them to build on
an ever-increasing scale, was the invention of concrete in the 1st century BC. Made by
mixing volcanic ash with lime and an aggregate, often tufa rock or brick rubble, concrete
was quick to make, easy to use and cheap. Furthermore, it freed architects from their de-
pendence on skilled masonry labour - up to that point construction techniques required
stone blocks to be specially cut to fit into each other . Concrete allowed the Romans to de-
velop vaulted roofing, which they used to span the Pantheon's ceiling and the huge vaults
at the Terme di Caracalla among other places.
Concrete wasn't particularly attractive, though, and while it was used for heavy-duty
structural work it was usually lined with travertine and coloured marble, imported from
