The Colosseum: Architecture and Spectacle in Ancient Rome

The Colosseum: A Juxtaposition of Theaters

Construction for shows arose from the juxtaposition of two theaters. The plant is elliptical. It has two clearly differentiated parts: the cavea where spectators are located and the arena where the show takes place. The caveas are arranged on three floors communicated whose corridors were covered with groin vaults or cannon. The enclosed arena with a complex device below where they were kept underground objects, machines and machinations. The floor of the arena located above the underground era wood.

Access to the stands towards the door through brokers. Outside each floor galleries open arches, with different order semicolumns each floor. The Tuscan first jonido the second and the third Corinthian. The Emperor Tito but he added a floor to increase capacity. The facade is divided into four orders. The three ordeneres below the 80 arches is formed by the fourth it is a blind wall with pilasters and window in one of two openings the top floor has a different style that was labeled as made was not customary to buildings with four overlapping orders. Communications between each floor were made through stairs. Are the load-bearing walls and pillars and the construction system used a dual system and the system arched lintels and arches. The materials used include concrete, brick. Travertine and tufa.

Its dimensions are enormous which allowed according to some historians hold up to 50,000 spectators. The exterior is divided into four floors of the first three series of round arches and the latter a continuous wall with pilasters.

Stylistic Language of the Colosseum

What stylistic language can be ascribed to the work? It is a civilian building belonging to Roman art, buildings dedicated to recreational functions. The amphitheater born joined from the two theaters we can see features like:

• Utilization of vault and arch
• Use more varied materials and some new ones such as concrete or mortar
• Tuscan order is used and also the Ionian and Corinthian
• Most significant though was the use of smart composite order
• The expression of architecture as a creative interior space, conceived space as something internal, architectural walls are the physical limits of an internal space in which there are q develop activities
• Colossal trend and monumentality tmb this is given by the idea of immortality of the empire