5/27 Hadrian's Villa

Tivoli, Italy:

So far on this excursion, we have been looking almost exclusively at public buildings and areas (the Roman forum, for example). Today, we were exposed how a private building would be formally expressed. This particular villa, built between 117 – 136AD during the reign of Hadrian and at Rome’s republican peak, is essentially a series of architectural experiments that were constructed due to both the emperor’s enormous wealth and his penchant for taking risks with brand new, never-before-seen formal representations. To show off both how well Rome’s political and economic machines were working, Hadrian built this villa outside the city of Rome as a way to escape from the city, as a way to wield power by calling the city council to the villa instead of holding meetings in Rome, and as a way to derive the benefits of rural life without having to be dependent on farming for your income. This conception of a villa appears in ancient Roman times, goes away during the Middle Ages, and then returns during the Renaissance. It is a rather fascinating study in a whole new conception of living. It is in fact a product of industrialized cities: it would not exist without this counterpart. It evolves here as a place to practice what the Romans called Otium: productive leisure.

Hadrian had no urgency to farm the land and be completely dependent on its fruits in order to live. He would essentially work on anything he wanted to, instead of those things that were essential to surviving. It seems, however, that the ability to practice otium is a result of the fortune of the very few. We see many more cases of farming the land in order to survive instead of living on a farm to essentially play around.

Hadrian was adopted into royalty. He was chosen, perhaps by destiny, to be a ruler. Ruling during a period of unprecedented expansion and wealth, he was part of a series of Roman emperors that were adopted instead of born into a family of rulers. I can’t imagine what it must have felt like for Hadrian to realize that he was chosen and raised to be emperor from among any number of possible candidates. It was perhaps this fact that drove him to be such a prolific member of society: this sense of responsibility that he must have felt. Or, perhaps it was his bi-polar personality; his servants sometimes finding him toiling ceaselessly well into the night alone until a task had been completed. He had both a wife, Sabina, and a male lover, Antinus who both lived with him at the Villa. The results of this flurry of activity are seen in the spaces that he produced here, which took full advantage of the extent to which Romans had mastered concrete at the time. Most of the spaces could be seen to be unnecessary, as he had a seemingly unlimited amount of land on which to build, experiment, satisfy wealthy clients, expand his knowledge base, etc. As with most of ancient Roman architecture, the shapes and volumes we see here at Hardrian’s Villa fall into the same category of Platonic solids that are found in Rome: the circle, square, and rectangle. However, the extent to which he plays with the intersection of these volumes is quite impressive.

Due to the ruined state of most of the more exquisite examples of his creativity, we are unable to make an accurate conjecture as to how some of these spaces were enclosed and what shape they took on. The Serapeum, for example, is a pumpkin-dome shaped area that would house a triclinium, or 3-part dining table, for all of the guests and dignitaries he would host on a regular basis. I suspect it was borne out of a need to amaze those who visited the villa; borne out of a desire to move away from the more planar, one dimensional arch; and borne out of a change in conception of moving through space. When an arch becomes a barrel vault, one is inclined to move through the space, as in a basilica, museum, hallway, etc. However, when the arch rotates on itself and becomes more of a static volume, one tends to want to remain in that space for more than just a quick viewing. Specifically at this place at Hadrian’s villa, one is more inclined to remain at the Serapeum to enjoy is volumetric qualities (and rub noses with some of Rome’s elite).

Another space at this villa which can be described with the same sense of “how did they do it?” is the Piazza D’Oro, where the emperor lived w/Antinus for a time. The entrance vestibule features a similar pumpkin dome to that of the Serapeum. A spectacular rectangular colonnade would have enclosed a garden space, similar in function to a Roman house, but beefed up in scale to the point where it more resembles a palestra than an outdoor leisure area. These two features, however, pale in comparison to the structure immediately opposite the garden space from the entrance vestibule. This structure features a myriad of differing Roman construction methods, from opus reticulatum, to opus latericium, to opus caementicium. These methods have all been employed before. What makes this particular construction unique is its undulating, Greek cross-like plan. It would have been easy for Hadrian to construct a series of arches or rectangular niches to fit the programmatic needs of this space. However, in keeping with the theme of experimentation and unnecessary spaces, he has created a daring structure which we still do not totally understand today how it was roofed.

Because Hadrian’s Villa is located a mere 18 miles from Rome, it is known that the emperor ruled his empire from this location. There is also speculation that one of the most impressive and historically important structures, the Pantheon, was designed here at the villa in what is known as the Maritime Theater. This space was the private apartment of the emperor and his office, a place of solitude within this sprawling complex. Its construction is of an annular vault running the entire circumference of its circular plan. Its dimensions are also similar to that of the Pantheon, which brings up an interesting design consideration: why did the ancients decide to design some of their most important buildings in spaces that were dimensionally similar to what they would eventually produce?

We shall see at Olympia in Greece how a similar tactic was employed to design one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Designers today are far removed from this practice. We typically design our structures in office buildings, sometimes in small cubicles, sometimes in larger conference rooms, but never in spaces that would be dimensionally similar to the final product. Would we be inclined to be more sensitive to the needs of our clients if we did design buildings the way the Pantheon was supposedly designed? Or is this fiscally irresponsible and impractical? The reason I believe we don’t design like this today is because it is extremely hard to “test” architectural ideas until they have been built in the real world. We can stare at them on the screen or the paper all we want, but until they are physically realized we really don’t know how the space will “feel”. It is incumbent on the architect, I would suppose, to have awareness for the space he or she is designing and to have an acute sense for the end product.

Location: Villa D’Este – Tivoli, Italy

The next villa we visited on this day was also in Tivoli, just a short drive from Hadrian’s Villa. The Villa D’Este can be discussed here in terms of the Renaissance conception of a villa vs a Classical villa. Of course, some similarities can be drawn between the two. Both intended to express the tremendous wealth of the client for which it was built, and both are built on enormous plots of land that seemingly know no bounds. Built by Cardinal Ippilito D’Este in the 16^th century, it was originally a Benedictine Monastery dedicated to a man who, coming from a wealthy family, became a bishop by the age of 8 and unsuccessfully tried to become pope. It is daringly built into the side of a steep hill, which gave it tremendous views of the countryside but also challenged the engineers to come up with new and ingenious ways of getting water to the site. The Villa D’Este actually borrowed heavily from ancient Roman themes, as presented in the house that fronts its main feature, the gardens. The building of the villa touches on many ideas and concepts from the old world, from its mosaic-covered vaulting to its richly decorated interior with paintings that deal with scenes from the founding of Rome. These scenes, however, are now mixed with biblical narratives as the people of the Middle Ages attempted to rid themselves of any pagan ideas from the past. Yes, the founding of Rome was as important an event as any, but any painting that dealt specifically with this world had its story intertwined with a more scriptural narration. As stated before, the obvious main feature of this villa is its tremendous gardens and fountains, now considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Formally, it is arranged on an axis extending from the main house, yet it was designed such that one could not walk straight down a central path to get to the bottom. Instead, one had to meander, wind, and criss-cross down the slope, encountering different architectural features along the way. This conception of leisurely walking through a garden is quite typical from the Renaissance era, as they were attempting to recreate the grandeur and pomp from the ancient world, but of course do it on a much larger scale. The original intent of the procession of spaces was from the bottom of the site to the top, but nevertheless one can still appreciate the totality of the villa if experienced in reverse. Fountains dot every area of the gardens.

The Wall of 100 Fountains, one of its more prominent features, was a point of political propaganda as well as an incredible feat of engineering. Extending at least half the length of a football field are statue heads that spout water in unison. Some of the heads are representations of animals, while still others were political opponents of the Cardinal, meant to embarrass them by depicting them unflatteringly. The move toward political cartoons in the 18^th and 19^th centuries must have been a result of not wanting to do so much work as to carve the heads of your counterparts into stone and have water spouting from their mouths; too much effort. Every fountain here is tied together through the same network of pipes; breathtaking would be a word I would use to describe the gardens, shaped and cut to naturally fit the paths that describe its walkable area. The fleur-de-lis is a constant symbol of representation here at the villa, as the Bourbon dynasty had a large presence and influence here in the 16^th century (as evidenced by the well-manicured gardens).