Building as Continuous Quarry
Bussana Veccia as imagined, 2017
Once upon a time, buildings had multiple lives. Once upon a time, “reuse and recycle” was legislated policy. Once upon a time, Home Depot already existed— however, its faraway cousin carried slightly different choices of product: a stock of pieces from disassembled or ruined buildings. Because the Romans didn’t fancy ruins as a romantic memory of history, they instituted a legislative order to economize their expansive building spree. Theodosian Code relates how the Roman Empire set up a system in which new construction was limited, existing fabric was upkept, ruin was processed into building material, and notions of aesthetics were part of everyday life.
For as much as they were engineers, the Romans were bricoleurs. A closer look at some of the most prominent buildings of their times reveals grandeurs made of second-hand pieces—Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and even the Great Mosque of Córdoba. There is something magnificent about achieving architectural splendor without the absoluteness of uniformity and performative yield of every part.
The Roman Empire is perhaps not directly applicable to our contemporary times, but it seems worthwhile to shuffle through the pages of history to remind ourselves that it is possible to innovate, expand, and build both significant and every-day architecture with the use of techniques that limit waste and encourage an economy of means that is less thirsty— not against a sense of beauty, but in a passionate embrace.
Saint Peter’s Basilica was not always the way we have it today. In fact, the original Saint Peter’s, constructed in the 4th century CE by Constantine the Great, was torn down in the 16th and 17th centuries. In comparison to its current iteration, the old colonnades were much more diverse in their material. Historians have found evidence in the detailed records of architects who undertook the demolition in the 16th century that among 44 nave columns there were twelve shafts of grey granite, four of red granite, sixteen of cipollino marble, and six of other marbles. Capitals and bases were also not uniform. Some capitals were finished and some only partly. Many bases did not match the columns, and even the lintels were of large marble blocks that seem to have been borrowed from the Circus Maximus or other ruins: “under one of the slightly curved blocks could be seen carved roses; under another one could read these letters: CVM. SPECVLATOR....”i
We can only speculate as to why the old St. Peter’s colonnade was made in such a way; thoughts range between desire and necessity. But the Romans seem not to have been opposed to the aesthetics of architectural bricolage and were willing to work with what was available in the local depots—88 matching shafts with caps and bases are hard to come by.ii
Elsewhere in the city of Rome, we find the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, which has an interesting intersection with the Baths of Caracalla. The basilica was founded by Pope Julius I in the 4th century CE, and was rebuilt from the foundations by Pope Innocent II around 1140 CE. The nave consists of a colonnade whose 8 capitals were taken from one or both of the library rooms in the Baths of Caracalla. It is possible to trace 4 ornamental bases to the baths as well, but the column shafts were not part of the reconstruction as they were too tall for the church; most likely they were reused in another 12th century project. It was long thought that the shafts were taken along with the Ionic capitals, but detailed archaeological surveys show that this is not possible. The columns at Santa Maria are heterogenous, and composed of at least 5 different granites of varying diameter. None of the dimensions or materials match the library colonnade at the Baths of Caracalla. The columnar shafts at Santa Maria must have come from a number of different sources, and it is impossible to discern the type of packages they arrived in. However, what can be noticed is that out of 24 column shafts, no two pieces arrived with the same height; only 3 duos and 1 quartet had matching diameters, and—as we still can see in the Basilica space—there are 5 different tonalities: granite from Aswan, granite from Troas, Sardinian granite, Italian granite, and granite del foroiii . But even such an orchestra couldn’t stop the church service.
A later, but intimately related project, the Great Mosque of Córdoba, is a hypostyle hall that is beloved by many architects. The design of parallel rows of equidistant supports for the ceiling was carried over from Syria under Emir Abd al-Rahman I c. 785 CE as the Umayyads fled to Spain. From early days when the hall was composed of 110 columns (organized in 11 aisles by 10 rows of 11 columns each) to the 856 columns that comprise the hall today, all the columns are a collection of Roman and Visigoth spolia that ranges from dark breccia to light pink marbles, as well as including granites, onyx, jasper, and other precious materials. The columns were collected from surrounding Roman ruins and repurposed from the Roman temple, which had stood at the site of the Mosque. It is precisely the misfit of found material that gives this building its architectural spark; all collected columns were around 3 meters in height, which is too short by a third for the needs of the space. In order to extend the height for a suitable ceiling, the builders added a second layer of masonry piers that are more than twice as wide as the diameter of the reclaimed columns; above the piers, arches and walls grow even thicker and produce an incremental widening of the total structure. This widening allows for gutters to be cut into the tops of the walls and drain the parallel pitched roofs over the aisles— a innovative detail for that time.iv
Though the earlier, more punk version of Saint Peter’s is no longer with us, there are still nearly two dozen early Christian and medieval churches like Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere that illuminate Rome with spoliated colonnades that are wholly or partially intact. In fact, spoliation continued into the Renaissance with Bramante, and took on a much more curated approach within the high arts. Rome in the 16th century was full of ruins to plunder and repurpose.
Palazzo della Cancelleria, the first Renaissance palazzo in Rome to be built from the ground up, was constructed between 1489 and 1513 by Donato Bramante. The pallazzo’s courtyard is the first of the Roman Renaissance to be built completely from spoliated granite monoliths and spoliated travertine. The desire for such repurposing lay in striving to recreate antiquity itself through literal materiality. Repurposing material strata is not an easy task; the builders underwent laborious and expensive processes of excavation and used impressive lifting machines for the procurement of granite shafts. Unlike previous approaches to spolia that did not require perfect integration, Palazzo Cancelleria introduced the process of alteration. The builders re-carved 44 granite shafts into a matching set and transformed large cylindrical columns into 8 L-shaped piers, which (only with the help of a particular Florentine chisel) fully altered their original form. Here we begin to see not only building fragments being swapped from building to building, but building fragments becoming materiality itself, re-shaped into new form. Bramante was a fan, and continued to use re-processed ancient granite in his work: the tribune at Santa Maria del Popolo, the Sala Regia in the Vatican Palace, and the spiral staircase of the Cortile del Belvedere. As the ramp at the Cortile del Belvedere spirals upward, the columns morph from the short, stocky Tuscan order, to the slightly more ornate and slender Doric, to slimmer, voluted Ionic columns, and finally to an even more decorated Corinthian Composite, while at the same time reducing in diameter by less than centimeter at a time. The amount of labor that it took to re-shape 31 granite columns to such orders is largely overlooked, but Bramante’s flexible relation to columnar proportions makes it clear that he desired to manifest re-carving of the columns, even if tender to the eye. And at Bramante’s Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio, the granite shafts that are key to the overall proportions are of three kinds of reshaped granite.v
But this culture of spolia was not limited to works of great architectural significance; several cycles of field work have produced documentation on 49 food bars at Pompeii and 8 at Herculaneum with a total of 8,000 stones, primarily of marble. The data suggest that much of the marble was second-hand, and a significant portion shows signs of former use. Much appears to come from wall paneling, windowsills, thresholds, and flooring— both as leftovers of production and second-hand repurposing. It seems that most of the material came from refurbishment or demolition projects of public and private buildings. History tells us that there were specialists in demolition and supply of second-hand materials. There was a guild of demolition experts, approved by Rome (CIL VI 940), and there was an economy of trade in salvaged materials. A sign was found in Pompei for a second-hand building material store, specializing in roof and gutter tiles salvaged from old houses. “if you cut out any [material] for the operation, let [the contractor] replace it . . . Let him keep materials from the old buildings for himself.. (Cicero, Against Verres 2.146-8, 2.156).”vi There is also evidence of the desire for second-hand materials in the legislation of Herculaneum, which enforced a ban on the purchase of private houses for the sole purpose of demolition, and profiteering from the sale of their materials. Used materials were most likely sold on the open market through specialized merchants to building contractors, or passed down to private concerns—like food bars.vii
Aside from these antique food bars, the economy of recycled materiality grew vastly; as with newly quarried materials, abandoned and ruined structures eventually came under government control and were part of the inventory in the material storehouses. As a result, it did not matter whether the material in question came from a quarry in Asia Minor or from a defunct public monument the next town over.viii A system emerged: when public buildings were damaged or demolished, their recoverable materials went into public storage, and a vast system of “imperial quarries” provided a seemingly unlimited supply of fresh material for new construction, for both public and official use.ix The Roman construction industry of twenty centuries ago had its own system of “Home Depots,” that served as local carriers of new and repurposed building materials.
The widespread network of material storehouses and warehouses was the result of a clearly organized system and governmental implementation. Most of the scholarship on spoliation is based on legislative evidence and archaeological records from the quarries. A substantial body of legislation provides clear evidence that late imperial lawgivers were aware of the practice of materials reuse, and sought to regulate the trade—with the main goal of limiting unnecessary new construction that would sap the resources of cities and cause old buildings to be neglected and destroyed with time. Provincial governors were advised to restore old works rather than begin new ones, and if any jurisdiction sought imperial assistance for new construction, the contributions would be given in the form of building materials rather than funds.
It is important to note the governmental choice of material support; per their legislation, it was prohibited to transfer reused building materials (either public or private)from one city to another. The legislation anticipated a few cases in which construction materials could be taken from a private building and transferred to another site—imperial approval was routinely granted to the owners who took elements from their own houses and donated them for the construction or beautification of a public building in the same city. It was permissible to remove material from a house in one city and transport it to a house in another city, provided that both houses belonged to the same person; however, it was forbidden to donate material from a house in one city for the construction of a public building in another, as it was considered inappropriate to aid in improving the appearance of another city. Similarly, decorative and structural materials stripped of public buildings could not be re-appropriated for private use.x
It is fascinating, and even humorous, to come across such provisions in the legislative documents of an empire; but they acknowledge through juridical evidence a degree of public participation and involvement in the construction of the imperial city. Like ourselves, Roman citizens navigated economic and legal constraints as they sought to exercise agency over their environment.
This story of Rome allows us to consider the notions of reuse and recycle, as well as the system of building material supply chains, that existed successfully and at scale in ancient times—though we imagine them to be our recent inventions. While other industries are spinning towards the 4th technological revolution, architecture and the building arts are merely looking to keep our place at the table, while we are continuing to quickly out-build ourselves with almost nothing worthy to say. Building lifespans are shortening, costs are skyrocketing, and thousands of villages, neighborhoods, and buildings are slowly turning into rubble. In Europe, one finds entire villages for sale, sometimes at the cost of only one euro per building. What to do with all this building strata?
Our construction processes have become standardized and digitized, producing components that are both generic and hyper-specific, while the materiality of our buildings are primarily amalgamations of finishes and surfaces. A recognition of our shared past invites a reconsideration of our disciplinary practices and resources, and it is an opportunity to ask ourselves—as we must always continue to ask—what it means to build.
Kate Bilyk is an architectural designer based in Berlin. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from California Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University. She has previously worked in Los Angeles and continues to do work in California.
https://www.instagram.com/katesbl/
iDale Kinney, Roman Architectural Spolia, (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145, no. 2, 2001), 144.
iiKinney, 138-145.
iiiDale Kinney, Spolia from the Baths of Caracalla in Sta. Maria in Trastevere, (The Art Bulletin 68, no. 3, 1986) 387.
ivDale Kinney, Roman Architectural Spolia, (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145, no. 2, 2001), 149.
vMichael J. Waters, Reviving Antiquity with Granite: Spolia and the Development of Roman Renaissance Architecture, (Architectural History 59, 2016), 159-168.
viFant, J.C., B. Russell, and S.J. Barker, Marble Use and Reuse At Pompeii And Herculaneum: The Evidence from the Bars, (Papers of the British School at Rome 81, 2013), 202.
viiFant, 198-206.
viii J. M. Frey, Speaking Through Spolia: The Language of Architectural Reuse in the Fortifications of Late Roman Greece, (Proquest Dissertations, Theses Global, 2006), 79-85.
ix Dale Kinney, ‘Spolia. Damnatio’ and ‘Renovatio Memoriae’, (Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, vol. 42, 1997), 124.
x Joseph Alchermes, Spolia in Roman Cities of the Late Empire: Legislative Rationales and Architectural Reuse, (Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 48, 1994), 173–177.