|
|
 |
|
Monumental Architecture Vs. the Everyday |
|
written
by kayanna / 10.24.2005 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Monumental Architecture vs. the Everyday |
1 of 1 |
|
| |
Assignment |
| |
The private space had the significance of housing the people of Rome, rather than being the place that they visited and paid homage to emperors and gods, willingly or begrudgingly. As a private residence without the funding of an emperor, the corridors were modest in scale and the interior hallways dim. As private space, it was close and tight, without the airy spaces and upward-drawing height of the public buildings that were intended to draw awe from the masses. Its walls were painted to represent marble lining. It had occasional marble and granite for floor tiles. It had a bath – a sign of modest wealth in its day.
However, because this was a location where specifically prophets dwelled and their bones remain, people preserved the site well. They erected a means to produce relics – special tokens that have touched the bones of the prophets. A pilgrimage here could provide such a relic to accompany the pilgrim home. The house becomes the shrine – encasing the bones and protecting them from harm. As a small space, it was allowed to continued because it did not challenge the overwhelming structures of the emperors, at least long enough to ensure it did not collapse entirely. An etching on the wall, completed by archaeologists from the merest chip of remaining wall, confirms that an emperor’s scribe later designated this site sacred. In this way, this house’s preservation was ensured long enough to become buried by the earth, rather than become dust itself.
The monuments of the emperors, however, were often left to crumble after their reign had ceased. Their marble was pillaged, and only by piecing together the columns or continuing the trajectory of the vaults can we understand how great these monuments used to be.
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
