Washington, D.C.: The National Geographic Society, Book Division, 1992, pp. The Builders: Marvels of Engineering (Elizabeth L. I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.
They will tell of being caught off-guard by its surpassing ancient glory. But ask anyone who's taken time to see that great skylit hemispherical space. In that role it may command less attention than Notre Dame or St. But the engineers have also graded the density of the concrete so the material is lighter near the top.ĭuring the seventh century, in now-Christianized Rome, this temple to all gods became the Rotunda of Santa Maria. The shell of the huge dome not only tapers from a thickness of 22 feet down to five feet. So the Pantheon sits on a foundation ring 15 feet deep and 24 feet wide and is buttressed by concentric outer support rings. Previous attempts to build with concrete had warned the Romans to make serious changes in the way they used concrete. The cast concrete dome seems to've originated with Hadrian. Turrell has created many structures with apertures in their roofs to catch the shifting lights of day and of the half light in just the same way. The 20th-century American artist James Turrell has been using that idea. The center is a 27-foot hole - an oculus, or eye, which carries light into that great inner space. The dome is cast concrete, decorated with an elaborate waffle pattern on the inside. The central chamber is 142 feet in diameter, and its top rides 142 feet above the floor. You enter that front, and it leads you into the largest domed space the world would see until 1800 years later. The Pantheon is a large pillbox of a building with a square classical front on one side. And it became one of the architectural landmarks of all time. It was under Hadrian, and with his involvement as an architect, that a new Pantheon was erected in AD 126. It was under Hadrian's rule that Hadrian's Wall across Northern England was begun. He was an extremely effective leader, a great builder, and a fine architect. Hadrian was emperor of Rome during the second fire. But that didn't incur proper divine protection for the wooden building against destructive fires in 80 and again in AD 110. In 25 BC, Agrippa dedicated the Pantheon to all the gods. The Romans finally succeeded because they had the concept of the Roman arch. Greek architecture didn't provide that sort of indoor space either. How then to create indoor spaces, as wide as they are deep, spaces for large gatherings: temples, churches, closed arenas, assembly halls? The Egyptians didn't manage it. The large unobstructed space offered by Indian and Neolithic long houses was awkwardly long and narrow. That's okay, because it affords some privacy. Houses offer more space, but that space has to be broken up into rooms. Igloos and wigwams offer clever means for gaining unobstructed indoor space. You might say the fundamental problem of architecture is creating interior space.
Pantheon architect hadrian series#
The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
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