Cities, Memory, and Imperial Power: From Ancient Forums to Modern Preservation

Examination Structure and Guidelines

• Exam Format: In-class handwritten Blue Book exam ($0.55\text{ USD}$ at Panther Shop; blue or black ink pen required). Notes and study guides must be bound in a notebook or folder for TA visual inspection.

• Structure & Tasks: 4 short essays ($100\text{ to }200$ words each) synthesizing major course themes using paired lecture case studies.

• Essay Objectives: Advance an overarching thesis, identify and describe each image (visually, spatially, contextually), compare their distinct approaches, and utilize course architectural vocabulary.

Urban Preservation, Social Memory, and Built Space

• Storehouses for Social Memories: Urban landscapes hold personal and collective memories; even totally bulldozed places can be marked to restore shared public meaning.

• Defining the City as a Political Act:

  • Urban vs. Architectural Preservation: A collection of elite monuments ($1\%$ of the built environment) vs. the messy, social, vernacular city ($100\%$ of the built environment).      

    

  • Herbert J. Gans: Sociological critique arguing preservation favors elite taste; advocates for modest public funding for working-class heritage.

  • Ada Louise Huxtable: Connoisseurship defense arguing irreplaceable aesthetic masterworks require specialized landmark protection.

  • Underlying Values: Examines whether architectural "taste" is an elite status marker opposing an equitable vision of the city.      

    

• Counter-Commemoration: Projects like Lower Manhattan's African Burial Ground counter exclusionary histories, making preservation an active political act.

Egyptian Obelisks: Engineering, Conquest, and Re-erection

• Indigenous Production and Meaning:

  • Monolithic granite quarried at Aswan, barged along the Nile (e.g., Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, circa $1507-1458\text{ BCE}$).

  • Erected in balanced pairs flanking temple pylons (e.g., Ramses II at Luxor, circa $1250\text{ BCE}$).

  • Dedicated to Ra; tapering shafts and pyramidia symbolize sun rays and mastery over nature.

• Roman Conquest and Spolia:

  • Augustus defeated Antony and Cleopatra ($31\text{ BCE}$); conquering Egypt required "conquering" the obelisk.

  • Transported across the Mediterranean in specialized ships to serve as trophies and tools of cultural appropriation.

  • Montecitorio Obelisk served as the gnomon for the Horologium Augusti ($10\text{ BCE}$); Flaminian Obelisk aligned with the sun on Apollo's festival day.

• Counter-Reformation Re-erection (1586):

  • Pope Sixtus V and Domenico Fontana moved the Vatican Obelisk using a massive timber castello.

  • Re-consecrated as "A Good Christian Monument" to establish urban pilgrimage routes and proclaim Church supremacy.

  • Stood as an intellectual palimpsest showing Christian triumph over ancient pagan and occult magic.

Topography and Republican Civic Architecture

• Origins and Engineering ($625-510\text{ BCE}$):

  • Originated at a Tiber River crossing as an Etruscan, Latin, and Sabine crossroads comfortable with hybridity.

  • Built the Cloaca Maxima to drain the marsh valley between the Capitoline and Palatine hills for civic space.

• Archaic Cult Markers:

  • Umbilicus Urbis Romae: Symbolic navel of Rome, underworld portal, and center point.      

    

  • Temple of Vesta: Circular hut typology with $20$ Corinthian columns sheltering the sacred hearth fire.      

    

• Republican Democratic Typologies ($510-31\text{ BCE}$): Outdoor spaces embodying the public state (res publica):

  • Curia Hostilia: Senate meeting house.

  • Comitium: Circular stepped outdoor assembly area for citizen voting.

  • Rostra Vetera: Elevated oratorical platform decorated with captured warship prows (rostra).      

    

  • Tabularium ($78\text{ BCE}$): Public archive presiding over the Forum with heavy Doric arcades symbolizing state knowledge.      

    

  • Basilica Typology (e.g., Basilica of Maxentius): Symmetrical hall for administration, courts, and commerce; features central nave, galleries, clerestory lighting, and an apse for magistrates.      

    

Imperial Fora and Autocratic Architecture ($31\text{ BCE} - 476\text{ CE}$)

• Transition to Axial Complexes: Replaced the organic Republican Forum with planned imperial complexes ($46\text{ BCE to }113\text{ CE}$), subordinating democratic assembly to autocratic ruler commemoration.

• Forum of Trajan ($107\text{ CE}$): Designed by Apollodorus of Damascus; prioritized monumental open voids (marble-paved courtyards) providing compression and release into the Basilica Ulpia.

  

• Trajan's Column ($107\text{ CE}$):

  • $20$ stacked Carrara marble drums ($115\text{ ft } 7\text{ in}$ tall); Rome's answer to the Egyptian obelisk.

  • $625\text{-foot}$ continuous spiral relief chronicling Dacian campaigns, settlement, and Roman logistics.

  • Top viewing platform reserved for the imperial family ("the right to see the city").

• Markets of Trajan ($113\text{ CE}$): Terraced hillside hub built of concrete (opus caementicium) and brick arcades; housed $150+$ shops (tabernae), warehouses, and administrative offices ("where empire and city meet").

The Metropole, Military Castra, and Provincial Urbanization

• Metropole Concept: Rome ("mother city") exported standardized institutions and architecture to conquered lands to make the unfamiliar familiar.

• The Castrum Camp: Standard orthogonal military base built ex nihilo; structured around the Cardo Maximus (N-S) and Decumanus Maximus (E-W) intersecting at headquarters (principia).

• Case Study — Timgad, Algeria ($100\text{ CE}$): Grid city founded by Trajan ($350\text{ m}$ square); embedded civic typologies (forum, theater, curia, baths) to assimilate conquered populations.

Modern Ideological Exploitation: Fascist Rome

• Via dell'Impero ($1924-1932$): Mussolini destroyed the dense medieval Quartiere Alessandrino to carve a triumphal military boulevard connecting Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum.

• Selective Demolition: Battered centuries of organic, layered history to isolate ancient imperial monuments, exploiting classical spectacles to legitimize fascist authority.