ABSTRACT
Greek public architecture was made up of sculp-tural masses set in balanced contrast to the landscape. In comparison, Roman architecture, as Heinz Kähler has observed, is an architecture of space, enclosed internal space and outdoor space, opened on a grand scale. The Egyptians and the Greeks shaped powerfully evocative buildings, but seldom were these structures meant to contain groups of people other than in council chambers and theaters that were open to the sky. Public life was conducted in the out-of-doors, among these sculpted architectural objects. The buildings’ constricted interiors were the domain of a priestly and social elite. Only in Hellenistic architecture did public spaces begin to be shaped in a conscious and deliberate way, and this shaping of space became the essence of Roman architecture. No better examples exist of the supremacy of space than in the enormous Roman baths or the vast interior of the Pantheon in Rome, its concrete dome arching over a clear span of 142.5 feet (43.4 m) [3.26, 3.27].
