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ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - romanonick - 03-06-2008
Is there any evidence that Roman architects and surveyors worked from detailed building plans while 'on site' ? If so what form did these take ?
Given the nature of the mathematical challenges inherent in the larger of the military and civic structures surely this wasn't left to approximations and a 'see how it goes' method while construction was on-going ?
Bedoyere and others have suggested that site surveying could be an extremely casual affair resulting in some post - constructional failures - but did this apparent laxity extend to the constructional aspects as well ?
Romanonick/Nick Deaon
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - Iagoba - 03-06-2008
I haven´t did it :oops: , but read your Vitruvius!
All renaissance architects did!
ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - romanonick - 03-09-2008
The Morris Hicky Morgan edition is unfortunately silent on the matter - I would suppose that there must have been some form of detailed 'drawing room' plan translation to a site version - the barest minimum being a shopping list of calculation requirements for each stage of the product. Each stage during its evolution could then have been cross-checked against the 'master' plan and approved rather in the same manner as current local building reg. requirements. :?: Is there a flaw in this thinking ?
Romanonick/NickDeacon.
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - jvrjenivs - 03-09-2008
I don´t have an answer ready, but maybe you could get rid of a copy of ´Roman Building - Materials and Techniques´ by Jean-Pierre Adam. I would really recommend that one to anyone interested in roman architecture and building techniques.
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - sulla felix - 03-10-2008
Jurjen is right - JP Adam goes into great detail about setting out of buildings and the possibility of "working drawings".
The "flaw" in your thinking about master plans is the actual surviving evidence (i.e. the buildings). On the one hand the Pantheon for example is a masterclass in design and setting out, and simply could not have been completed without detailed calculations IMHO. However, when other buildings such as surviving military architecture (barrack blocks etc) are compared there is very loose and non-repetitive (at least in terms of measurement) space planning. A lot of work was carried out on the comparison of the units of roman measurement (two known to me are the pes monetalis and the pes drusianus) to determine whether there is a "standard" that may have been used, but this was inconclusive as I recall. See the excellent article in Britannia Vol 11 - Length-Units in Roman Town Planning: The Pes Monetalis and the Pes Drusianus
R. P. Duncan-Jones, as a starting point, and the works of CV Walthew (also in Britannia if memory serves!).
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - Tertius Mummius - 03-14-2008
The Forma Urbis Map proves that there were drawings (and detailed ones, too, as the map also documents the buildings' interiors).
A builder's instruction has been found in the villa "Steingasse", Grenzach-Wyhlen: scribbled upon a marble slant were shorthand notices obviously referring to last-minute changes in the construction plan.
ad pod(ium) LVI / lat(um) p(edes) III, m(edium or meridiem) p(edes) III s(emis) / substen(ere) bus(?) XVI (or XV?) s(emis?) / alt(um) p(edes) II sept(emtrionem) p(edes) / II
The note is as abridged as could be and the transcription bears more question marks than a grade test, but the recurring numbers, directions and "p"s make its nature evident.
(From: "Geritzt und Entziffert – Schriftzeugnisse der römischen Informationsgesellschaft", Limesmuseum Aalen 2004)
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - L. Aufidius Pantera - 03-14-2008
There's also rather amusing evidence from Nicopolis ad Istrum in Bulgaria - a gate was evidently built according to a building plan that somebody held the wrong way round: The gate has a portcullis, but for some reason this is on the inside and the gate-stoppers and hinge-holes seem to show that the gates themselves opened outward...
Don't have a precise reference, but look at
Poulter, A.G. Nicopolis ad Istrum, a Roman, Late Roman and early Byzantine city, Society of Roman Studies, 1995 - it should be in there somewhere.
Throughout late Roman forts in the Balkans there are also some indicators that forts were built by Roman troops according to a standardised plan, but that the interiors were then modified by foederati troops that actually garrisoned them (i.e. re-aligning of interior structures, blocking of drains etc etc) though that doesn't really fall under the heading "building plans"...
Building Plans - Frontinus - 03-25-2008
At last a reason for joining the debate and exercising some of a life times professional knowledge!
Firstly it is difficult to imagine that some form of 'plan' or 'drawing' was not used, at least for the larger projects. Not least for working out the amount of materials necessary as any building, then as now, requires a ready supply of the right materials in the right sequence. Making it up as you go along is not an option. The repetition of similar building forms across the Empire suggest that the basic technology was passed along through the Army and developed by the 'locals' to suit their own needs and materials. Knowledge must have been passed down and some written format is the most likely. Scribing it onto stones whilst convenient for us to find would be rather inconvenient at the time. Even the high level record is sparse and incomplete, Vitruvius being an example, we only have part of his treatise to refer to.
Some knowledge of setting out is also essential to achieve a satisfactory building, wobbly and non square walls generate more problems later in the construction. Further if any confirmation is needed there is little doubt that builder then did what builders do now, having learned how to work in the easiest manner keep at it. Don't change until some smart 'architect' insists and only then with reluctance.
I wish I knew the Latin for my favorite building site response when the work varies from the drawings "We always do it that way Guv'nor"
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - Sean Manning - 03-26-2008
Its post-Roman, but the St. Gall Plan (tip of the hat to Endre, who reminded me of the place in the "Survival Rate of ancient literature thread") probably reflects a Classical tradition of mapmaking. However, there's no evidence that it was used to build any actual monastery.
Roman Building Site Plans - romanonick - 03-26-2008
Thanks for your responses - particularly Frontinus (welcome by the way
!) I shall follow up the sources suggested and weave in the necessary and common-sense ingredients towards a 'modus operandi' for an imaginary 'prentice architect/builder character in a book I'm attempting to write ! There's a limit to how many aspects of a particular age one can ignore purely on the grounds that there is little or no surviving evidence !Failing all else you can't beat common sense interpretation - especially as in this case where practicalities haven't fundamentally changed in over two thousand or more years ! Thanks again.
Regards,
Romanonick/Nick Deacon.
plans on marble walls - richsc - 03-27-2008
There was I believe a History Channel show that, similar to the prior response, illuminated very light drawings on the walls of some Greek temples that were detailed architects or builders plans. Could this have been a fairly common on site practice?
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - Dan Diffendale - 03-27-2008
Quote:There was I believe a History Channel show that, similar to the prior response, illuminated very light drawings on the walls of some Greek temples that were detailed architects or builders plans. Could this have been a fairly common on site practice?It's the Temple of Apollo at Didyma (the plans were discovered by Lothar Haselberger here at Penn...)
Here's a snippet.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/enc ... cbase.html
Article
re: the Parthenon
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - Frontinus - 03-27-2008
The last response from Danno Ulpius bears out my experience on modern building sites, some things never change and this illustrates the point that the most effective way to exchange information is by pictures / drawings call them what you will.
Another pet subject of mine is that you should not rely on the interpretation of ' academics ' who do not have the knowledge, let alone practical experience, of actual construction. My favorite is the oft repeated mantra that 'you can tell the height of a wall by the depth of the foundations' which also bears out the sad situation that once it appears in print it becomes a fact. :roll:
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - SMC - 04-01-2008
Hi
You might like to take a look through Procopius' 'Buildings' from the 6th century. I've attached a link to his description of the building of Hagia Sophia for which the architects produced models in advance.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/p ... eaed1.html
All the best,
Stephen
Re: ROMAN BUILDING SITE PLANS - Komet - 04-03-2008
As a note about the Forma Urbis--it's a plan based on something already existing rather than a projected design or blueprint an architect would use or create. The Forma Urbis also has some mistakes, and if you inspect it closely enough, you find that some of the engravers got lazy with some details.