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[Intro piano music]

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Imagine how beautiful it must have been, this square

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with all these monumental arches covered in travertine

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and all these statues and beautiful fountains spilling out water

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reflecting the light on the travertine.

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That we might think about this more like the way

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we think today about Lincoln Center(exactly) --

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with fountains in the middle and gleaming stone.

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Should we start off by talking a little bit

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about the structure and how it was built?

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We have to imagine the Colosseum as a gigantic donut.

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You have the inside as the arena.

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Arena originally in Latin meant "sand".

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On the floor where gladiators were fighting,

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they used sand to absorb blood and body fluids.

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You know, like a gigantic cat litter if you think about it.

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So between different fight[s],

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they could simply clean off very easily.

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The original name of this building was not Colosseum.

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Colosseum is a nickname given later.

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Not because it was a colossal monument ,

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but because it was located in the proximity of

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a colossal statue -- originally of Nero--

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that was part of the decoration of his house.

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And so with time the nickname was given by this proximity.

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The original name was actually Flavian Amphitheater.

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And this is something very typical

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even if you think about American monuments.

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You have the Lincoln Center,

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you have the Rockefeller Center.

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They are connected with the name of the family that paid for the building.

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The Flavian family paid for the building of the Colosseum.

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Flavian Amphitheater is just a technical name for the shape.

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It simply means in Greek "a double theater".

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The original Greek theaters were actually semi-circles

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with a flat end by the stage,

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and so this is really just fitting those two together.

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By using arches and concrete,

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Romans were able to build an amphitheater

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even a double theater with seats on a flat surface.

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The engineering behind it is absolutely astonishing

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considering that it was only built in ten years.

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The Colosseum could hold between 50,000 and 80,000 people.

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And if you look at the actual top part of each of the ground floor arches,

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you see a roman number.

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They are very dark and dilapidated. (Ah! I see!)

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You can see a 23 (XXIII).

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Then there is a 24 (XXIIII).

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And then there is a 25 (XXV).

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They are progressive.

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And these numbers would have been written on the tickets given to the people.

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It‘s like in a modern stadium --

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you would have an assigned seat ...

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A gate number. Also the seat.

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Because it was extremely important for the Romans.

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Even the seats were assigned according to their status.

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So you had the most important people close to the arena

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and the least important - being the women - on the top floor.

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Here we actually see the style of the Colosseum.

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So you have three stories of arches,

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and then another story - a fourth floor with windows,

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so it's closed with small windows inside.

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And if you look at these arches,

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the arches are framed by columns.

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At the bottom part you have what is called Tuscan.

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It's similar to Doric

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but it's more a local - an Italic style.

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It's even simpler than Doric it seems.

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Yes, it's also the base.

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I mean Doric columns do not have a base

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while Tuscan columns do have a base.

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And they not are fluted as well, right? No.

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Then you go to the Ionic columns on the second story.

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And the Ionic columns actually are...

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they're considered the most feminine of the columns.

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Because their proportions were more slender

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and with these volutes on the top.

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and the women sat higher as well...exact.

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And the top floor you got the Corinthian.

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They're based on the Acanthus plant -

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it's indigenous in Rome, you can find it in many gardens.

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It is very nice with green leaves.

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And so it's an imitation of a piece of stone

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covered with leaves of grass.

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Inside of each of the arches on the second and third floor,

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there would be a statue.

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And on the top floor there would be

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probably bronze shields on top alternating the windows.

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Yeah, we imagine the Colosseum as a donut.

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The outside circle was done with blocks of travertine.

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The inside of the donut was done with a core of concrete.

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Ancient Romans had really perfected concrete

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and really were the first to use it as this structural material.

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And that was critical for their ability to create structures of this size.

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Also, something like the Pantheon.

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The development of concrete was crucial for two main reasons.

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The first one is if you work with cut stone:

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marble, travertine, even tufa stone,

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you need specialized workers

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becuase you need to know how to cut the stone.

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If you get it the wrong way,

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the stone will crumble into your hand, right?

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With concrete it makes it possible for not specialized workers

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to produce something that's more sturdy.

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At the same time it's less expensive. You know.

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To quarry blocks of marble is not the cheapest.

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Concrete could be assembled everywhere.

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You just need a little mortar and a few pieces of stone to make aggregate and water.

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So it's very easy but at the same time it's more elastic.

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With concrete you get sort of elasticity and you can mold space.

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Because it's something liquid and you can simply mold it the way you want.

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And so the idea would be to take a wooden framework

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that framed out the space that you wanted

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and then to pour concrete into that wooden mold.

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Exactly, and then it could be covered with decoration.

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It could be bricks, stucco, whatever you want.

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So it really allowed for far more monumental structures,

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and that would be economically and physically feasible.

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And less expensive and quick.

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You know ten years to build the Colosseum is quite an accomplishment

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because they used mostly concrete.

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And also kind of thinking about architecture in a new way

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in terms of shaping an interior space.

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Particularly interiors.

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Because if you look at Greek architecture,

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you look at the temples,

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the inside of the temples is quite narrow.

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If you think the Pantheon, you just are in this amazing sphere.

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And that's why they really invented it,

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the idea of molding not the outside but the inside

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to be able to produce a vault

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that could permit to have a space free of standing columns

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in the middle to support the roof.

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Moving away from post and lintel architecture to an interior space

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which really in a sense almost doubled the architecture vocabulary

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and created an advancement over a system

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that had existed for thousands of years.

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Romans they employ concrete on such a scale

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that permitted them to build wherever they wanted.

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They were not forced by the space.

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Greeks could not build a theater wherever they wanted.

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They needed a slope.

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So what if you were living in a city without slopes?

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No theater for you, right?

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Romans were able to creat a theater, an amphitheater,

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or a circus, or a bath complex wherever they wanted.

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It's true that Greeks seemed to use natural features in a more passive way

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whereas the Romans seemed to shape the landscape much more aggressively.

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You talked about the fact that there had been a lake here.

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Let's drain the lake. We are putting a building here.

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That is nature becomes in the service of man rather than vice versa.

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That's actually a very good point.

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The fact is that they wanted to be able to shape their space.

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So the idea of urban planning,

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you could build a city the way you wanted to

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and not just be subject to the landscape that was there.

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But I think that there is this really important way

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in which the Romans were thinking of themselves --

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as powers in the landscape, having that sort of dominance.

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It seems to me that the Romans shaped in a way

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that speaks of that notion of their own inherent strength.

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What was different about the Roman society,

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they were not racists in the sense

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that they were looking at the color of your skin.

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They didn't［could't］care less about that.

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It was a multicultural society.

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There were Romans from Africa,

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Romans from Turkey, Romans from Germany.

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What made it different was were you a citizen or not.

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If you were not a citizen, you were nobody.

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But if you were a citizen, the color of your skin was not important.

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But there were fine distinctions even within citizenship.

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Of course there were social classes.

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One interesting aspect was that you could move along the social scale.

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While for Greeks you could not even acquire citizenship.

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It was extremely rare to obtain citizenship.

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For the Romans even a slave could become first a free man,

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and then his children would become full citizens for Rome.

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It's like the America. If you think about America,

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like the second generation immigrants as the same idea.

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They realized that being able to move and

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being able to sort of give people a chance in life

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could make all the difference in the economy.

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[Closing Piano Music]