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Ulrich ( R.B. ) , Quenemoen ( C.K. ) (edd.) A Companion to Roman Architecture . Pp. xxiv + 589, ills. Malden, MA and Oxford : Wiley Blackwell , 2014. Cased, £120, [euro]144, US$195. ISBN: 978-1-4051-9964-3 .
Reviews
Part of Blackwell's series of Companions to the Ancient World, this welcome volume delivers much of the promise of its jacket notes in presenting an up-to-date overview of critical approaches to its subject. It brings together contributions that attune with the mission to understand Roman architecture 'as an integrated cultural practice', responding to factors as disparate as aesthetics, geography, politics and technology.
The scope is ambitious, covering expected as well as discretionary topics, for example on how Roman architecture was co-opted in Fascist Italy, and its visualisation whether on coins in its own time or by means of digital media today. Predominantly drawn from north American academia, the contributors bring long established expertise (e.g. J. Anderson on architects and patrons) and ongoing preoccupations (e.g. P. Davies on Republican architecture and politics).
After a short introduction the 25 chapters are sensibly structured. The first group of six constitutes a chronological overview, beginning with features of Italic Architecture in the early first millennium b.c. (by J. Becker), and ending with the architecture of the Tetrarchy (by E. Mayer). There are gaps (e.g. from the end of the reign of Hadrian to that of Septimius Severus), but comprehensiveness is hardly essential.
The next group of chapters, 7-10, addresses the creation of Roman buildings. There is a chapter on architects and patrons, as mentioned, one on the delivery of design by means of plans, models, measuring and surveying (Chapter 8 by J. Senseney), one on materials and techniques (Chapter 9 by L. Lancaster and U.), and one on the workforce and worksite (Chapter 10 by R. Taylor). Arguably the chapter on Vitruvius (Chapter 22) may have gone better after Chapter 7. Belying the emphasis placed on design in both the jacket notes and the introduction, there is regrettably little treatment of this subject, so too the principles and methods by which Roman...