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The Pantheon: The ancient building still being used after 2,000 years

November 25th, 2020

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When visitors walk into the Pantheon in Rome and encounter its colossal dome, they may experience the same theatricality as its guests nearly 2,000 years ago.

“Anyone who steps inside the Pantheon immediately feels the crushing weight of human history, but also the incredible lightness of human creativity,” said John Ochsendorf, professor of architecture at MIT and former director of the American Academy in Rome.

“You come into this grand space and you look up and you see the sky or a passing cloud. And you think: ‘How could they have done this nearly two millennia ago?'”

The Pantheon is the oldest building in the world that’s still in use today. Since the 7th century, it has been a Roman Catholic church.

Built around 125 A.D. by the Roman emperor Publius Aelius Hadrianus, it was actually the third iteration of the structure. The first Pantheon caught fire around 80 A.D. and was rebuilt shortly after, but it was struck by lightning and burned down again around 110 A.D. The buildings’ ill fate led to rumors that the Pantheon was cursed.

The facade of the completed structure riffed on ancient Greek motifs, with a portico entrance featuring a pediment — a triangular top — and two rows of Corinthian columns. The interior was sweeping and airy, capped by a dome that to this day — is still the largest unsupported concrete dome in the world.

What was it used for?

Pantheon means “all gods,” and though it’s commonly thought the structure was a site of worship dedicated to Roman deities, its original purpose is actually unknown.

With scant mentions of it in Ancient texts, historians have been left somewhat in the dark. Though it could be a temple, Roman buildings were typically multi-purpose structures, said Lynne Lancaster, an architectural historian and humanities educator. “And so what actually went on in the Pantheon is hard to say.”

Legends say it’s the very site where Rome’s founder, Romulus, ascended to heaven. Others believe the Pantheon was where the Roman emperor could communicate with the gods. Whatever the case, like many Roman architectural feats, the imposing structure was a show of might, an “important symbol of imperial power,” said Luca Mercuri, the Pantheon’s current director.

Indeed, Roman architecture of the time embodied wealth, strength and dignity. Centuries later, Neoclassical architects would reference the Pantheon’s portico and dome combination to imbue their buildings with those same values, from the US Capitol in Washington, DC., to the Somerset House in London.

How was it built?

The Pantheon was an architectural marvel of the Roman Empire.

The oculus — Latin for “eye” — stretches 30 feet across, opening the structure to the heavens. The sun beams through the oculus, and when it storms, the rain comes down like a waterfall into the interior.

“The oculus at the center seemed to tempt fate and leave (the Pantheon) open to the sky,” said Ochsendorf. “But it also showed a mastery of geometry and construction — that they could build domes on that scale and leave an oculus open at the center, in a way (that was) almost showing off.”

During the Middle Ages, religious leaders, who were incredulous of the feat, cast doubt on the holiness of the Pantheon, believing it to be the work of the devil.

But it wasn’t Satan; it was engineering.

Though white, yellow, purple and black marble was imported from around the Mediterranean, it was concrete — a Roman invention — that allowed architects to do away with load-bearing columns and introduce spacious domes.

One trick to make a large dome stable was to use progressively lighter stone in the concrete mix as it reached the top. Heavy brick could be used at the base, with spongy, light volcanic rock around the oculus.

Though the Pantheon has revealed some of its design secrets, Lancaster said she still finds magic in the details. As the day progresses, the sun flickers around the dome’s interior, casting light over its sunken grid like a giant sundial.

“It’s one of the few places in the world (where) you can actually watch the Earth turn.”

Article by cnn.com


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Architecture, silence and light. Louis Kahn in the Photographs by Roberto Schezen

January 6th, 2020

A focus show on the architecture of Louis Kahn through the photographs of Roberto Schezen. On display, the diverse materials making up the Schezen Fond – from this year part of the museum’s Photography Collections: from the photographer’s own silver gelatin prints to the large format negatives and through to the invaluable colour slides, together with large-format photographs from the original negatives. Schezen’s images lead us on a path that from silence moves towards the light, traversing themes dear to Louis Kahn such as order, form, wonder and silence. The more classical photographs of ...
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Pompei e Santorini

November 11th, 2019

“Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, fires, overfloods, floods, suddenly changing, with the face of the earth, the course of human societies, have combined them in a new way, and these combinations, whose primary causes were physical and natural, have become , over time, the moral causes that change the state of things " The exhibition offers an extraordinary and unprecedented comparison between the two ancient sites, united by an identical purpose. Two whole human settlements were buried by eruptions, with their ideals, their beliefs, their cultures. The theme of catastrophe and rebirth will accompany ...
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Invernomuto. Prima delle sabbie

November 4th, 2019

The second event of Connection Gallery, a project by the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, curated by Massimo Mininni, sees the participation of Invernomuto, an artistic duo made up of Simone Bertini and Simone Trabucchi. After the work of Andrea Mastrovito, the three stage exhibition series that started in June continues with its intention to give space to the work of young artists, selected on the basis of their ability to tune their creative expression to that of the museum and its peculiarities through the creation of a site-specific work. The ...
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Valerio Berruti. La giostra di Nina

October 29th, 2019

A cinematographic animation project that starts on paper to transform into a collective and participatory art performance. La giostra di Nina (Nina’s carousel) is the name of the short film project created by Valerio Berruti and composed of approximately 3000 individual drawings put together sequentially to each become frames of a short film, hosted in the Museum’s video gallery The characters are Nina, a young carousel fairground child who is forced to work by her surly grandfather and Geppo, a young man with a childlike soul who causes turmoil amongst the carousel customers ...
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Bacon, Freud and the School of London

October 21st, 2019

Two giants of painting, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, together for the first time in an Italian exhibition. One of the most fascinating, extensive and significant moments in world art history. A revolutionary period in an amazing city. Click here to check out all the offers available this month.
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On the spiritual matter of art

October 14th, 2019

What does it mean today to talk about spirituality? on the spiritual matter of art is a project that investigates the issue of the spiritual through the lens of contemporary art and, at the same time, that of the ancient history of Rome. In a layout offering diverse possible paths, the exhibition features the works of 19 artists, leading names on the international scene from very different backgrounds and cultures. In a rigorously non-confessional vision, the exhibition, therefore, brings together works of contemporary art with a selection of archaeological relics from the ...
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Altan. Pimpa, Cipputi e altri pensatori

October 7th, 2019

Altan is the protagonist of a major exhibition at MAXXI, produced in co-production with Fondazione Solares and Franco Cosimo Panini Editore, curated by Anne Palopoli and Luca Raffaelli. A complete examination to recount, in a structured journey, all of his work among original drawings, posters, illustrations, paintings, sketches, tables, books and videos. Altan’s world is a world where doubt turns out to be the only great certainty possible, in which the great myths of history are overturned and humanity tries to float in the messy sea of life. We are saved by ...
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Robert Morris. Monumentum 2015-2018

September 30th, 2019

Almost 40 years ago, in 1980, Robert Morris’ first personal exhibition was held, curated by Ida Panicelli and dedicated to minimalist sculpture. Now, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea celebrates this artist fundamental to the history of contemporary art, a master of American Minimalism, of which he was one of the founders, and of process and land art, to mention just some of the great movements that his incredibly prolific and multi-directional research moved through in the course of some sixty years. Robert Morris. Monumentum 2015–2018 curated by Saretto Cincinelli is ...
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Gio Ponti. Amare l’architettura

September 23rd, 2019

Architect, designer, art director, writer, poet, critic and all-round artist, Gio Ponti has been the object of historical-critical literature and exhibition programmes that would be difficult to equal. 40 years on from his death, MAXXI is dedicating a major retrospective to him that studies and presents his versatility, starting out with an account of his architecture. From the styling of everyday objects to the invention of spatial configurations for the modern home through to the realisation of complex projects inserted within an urban context such as the Pirelli skyscraper in Milan or the ...
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  • Recent Posts

    • The Pantheon: The ancient building still being used after 2,000 years
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    • Valerio Berruti. La giostra di Nina
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