I want to turn from theater architecture
in the western provinces to temple architecture.
And just as in Rome and just as in every
city that we've looked at, temple architecture was extremely important.
The temples that I'm going to show you, and I'm going to show you two of them, one
at Vienne in France and one at Nimes, also in France, are among our best preserved
Roman temples today.
and it's important to keep in
mind that both of them were part of complexes.
They stand in isolation today, but in antiquity they were part of a complex.
Probably some kind of forum or central space for that city.
This is the one at Vienne, which I show
you [COUGH] show to you first, that dates to
the, probably to before AD 14, and it is
a temple that was put up to Augustus in Roma.
It may have been, the dedication may have been changed to
Augustus and his wife Livia at some point, we're not absolutely sure.
But you see it here in a very good general view of what it looks like today.
It's one of these buildings that has been preserved in large part
because it has been used for later purposes.
It was used as a, as a marketplace.
It was used as a museum at one point, and that is what has helped to preserve it.
We see it again here, and it's interesting, I think,
to compare it to the restored view of the Temple of
Mars Ultor that was part of the Forum of Augustus
in Rome, because the dates are roughly comparable to one another.
And I think that you will see that it is, that it is a typical Roman temple.
In fact, almost indistinguishable from what we
would see in Rome at the same time.
So here's an example, again, of what happens when you go, when the Romans go
into a part of the world that isn't
already inhabited by a very highly developed civilization.
That they make buildings that look very similar
to those that were put up contemporaneously in Rome.
The temple at Vienne is no exception.
If we look at this temple, we see it has the typical Greco-Roman plan.
With the tall podium, the deep porch, the free standing columns in that porch.
And we see that the order that is used here is the Corinthian order.
Some of the temple is made out of local limestone.
Some of it is made out of marble.
But what we see here that's very
interesting vis-a-vis what was happening at the same time in Rome is the cella.
You can see that the cella is actually very shallow.
Much more shallow than the cella, cella usually is.
And you can see that quite well in this view over here.
And that same shallow cella we find at the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome.
The other similarity is the fact that at the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome,
we have freestanding columns columns all the way up to the, to the back here.
And those columns, and the, and there's space
between those columns and the wall of the cella.
And that creates a type of temple design that we
refer to today as a temple with alae or wings.
Wings one on either side of the cella. Formed by that space between the wall
of the cella and the freestanding columns.
And we see exactly the same thing over here.
This design of a temple with alae.
There is no question that this temple in Vienne was built under
the very strong influence of the temple of Mars Ultor in Rome.
All of those features, I mean, it wouldn't have come upon those features by accident.
It is clearly being closely
based, one on the other.
Here are two more views of the Temple of Augustus and Roma/Livia
at Vienne, where we see all of the features that I've already
shown you, but where you can see particularly well the shallow cella,
the plain, the back wall here that has pilasters rather than columns.
And then if you go around the back you will see it has a plain flat
back which was the case also for the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome.
A more famous temple and even more famous temple and
if, if, if that's possible, and even better preserved temple is
the one that you now see on the left-hand side
of the screen, which is the famous Maison Carrée at Nimes.
It too, it too has been reused in ancient times as a museum and the like.
It's still a small a museum
today, which is one of the main reasons that it is so well preserved.
It is an extraordinary work of Roman architecture.
I think it's interesting to compare it to the
Temple of Portunus that we saw much earlier this semester.
The major difference, of course, between the two, the materials that are used.
This is local limestone with marble.
This, well, we won't remind ourselves what,
tufa and travertine and so on and so forth that we looked at earlier.
This is a, an Ionic temple, this is a Corinthian temple.
But once again it seems to be the temple of Mars Ultor that was the
main model for the Maison Carrée or the square house at Nimes.
And I show you another view of it here, because you'll see,
just like the temple of Portunus, it has a pseudo pseudoperipteral colonnade.
And you can see that extremely well.
Yes, the columns encircle the entire monument including the back wall,
but those columns are engaged or attached to the wall going all the way around.
Here you can again see the opus quadratum blocks
of this local limestone that's used for the walls.
And then marble used for the columns and also for the capitals
of this glorious and very well preserved Roman temple.
And here some spectacular details of the capitals of
of the Maison Carrée at Nimes.
And, the frieze.
And, also the the decoration up above.
And, what's interesting about these capitals, if you look at them in
detail, you will see that not only are they Corinthian and we can
see the the spiral volutes growing out of the acanthus leaves down below.
But if you compare these capitals to a capital, a preserved
capital, from the temple of Mars Ultor in Rome, you will see
that not only are these based on these, but that they are
so close, so close, that there is absolutely no question, I believe.
Well, this was
not suggested by me, but by a scholar
who studied these in great detail and determined and
suggested, and all of us believed it ever
since, that these are not only based on those.
But that the same workshop worked these capitals for
the Maison Carrée as for the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome.
Now that works well chronologically, because you'll remember that the Temple
of Mars Ultor in Rome was dedicated in 2 BC.
This building, as you can see from your monument list, was built in around AD 5.
So there was perfect, it was, it was perfect timing for those architects
and artisans who had been successful at the temple of Mars Ultor in Rome.
This major commission allowed themselves, we believe, to be
hired out to those in the south of France,
to make the trip to Nimes in order to build a temple in the model of
the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome at Nimes. The result, the Maison Carrée.
So this, this is, I've made this point in other lectures about the fact that there
are certain times when we can document not
only the exchange of ideas, but even, architectural ideas.
But even the exchange of
architects and artisans going from one part of
the Roman world to another in search of commissions.
And this is one of those times where we can
document with certainty, that August, artists working in the employ
of the emperor himself, Augustus, made their way to the
south of France to create this amazing temple from scratch.
Once again, temple very much in the model of the most famous
temple of its day in Rome, and that is
the Temple of Mars Ultor, in the Forum of Augustus.
One more detail, here's the Mars Ultor capitals again,
and over here the, the capitols of the Maison Carrée.
And I show you above the frieze which is extremely well preserved, and you
see this flowering acanthus plant that should
immediately remind you of contemporary decoration in Rome.
Think of the flowering acanthus plants of the Ara Pacis Augustae.
So, once again proof that there is a very close connection to what's
going on in Rome at this time and in the south of France.
Here's another spectacular view of the Maison
Carrée as it looks in its location today.
In the center of a plaza surrounded by the daily
life of Nimes as you can see so well here. Still very much a part of daily life.
And very interesting is the fact that if
you look across the street from the Maison Carrée,
you see a building that was designed by the
very famous and very talented British architect, Norman Foster.
It's also a museum.
And, and it's a play on the, on the name of the Maison Carree.
It's called the Carré d’Art. It's a museum that has modern art.
and, it, it mostly exhibits its permanent collections.
But you can see, and I'm going to show you a detail in a moment to bring
this point home, you can see that Norman Foster
has really looked at and studied the Maison Carrée.
And has created a modern version, a very modern version, of the Maison Carrée.
If you look at the Maison Carrée, and its its deep porch and its high podium
and its single staircase, this facade orientation, all the usual Roman elements.
And look at this building.
You will see that he too has created a kind of portico in the front.
They're not actual columns they're, they're piers.
But piers, and it's very slender and
elegant piers, but piers nonetheless that are clearly
being played off the columns of the Maison Carrée.
And look at the way in which he has done, the, the, the glass exterior.
He has divided it into a series of panels that
are clearly, I believe, reflecting, and I'm sure he knew he
was doing this at the time, clearly reflecting the panels of
the ashlar masonry of the walls of the actual Maison Carrée.
So this very interesting, we see not only dialogue happening, you know, within
Roman buildings themselves and various part, in Rome itself and various parts of
the world, but this ongoing dialogue,
between ancient monuments and modern buildings in
cities like Rome, the Ara Pacis and the Meier building is one example.
But also in some of these other cities like Nimes in the south of France.
And by the way,
you can go up, there's a roof garden that you can go up to on the top of
this, of the Carré d'art in order to see
a spectacular view from above of the Maison Carrée.
