[Architecture] Italy - Rome Edition
Travelogue of Italy from 20 years ago
Florence Edition
Vatican Edition
Finally, there is Rome.
In Rome, I visited all the standard tourist spots:
・Colosseum
・Bocca della Verità (Mouth of Truth)
・Spanish Steps
・Trevi Fountain
Everywhere I went, the cityscape felt steeped in history.
However, the place I wanted to see most in Rome was
the Pantheon.
The Pantheon that remains today is a temple built between 118 and 128 AD. The fact that a structure from 1,900 years ago still exists and is in use today is truly amazing. Moreover, the building is made of concrete walls topped with a semi-circular domed roof 43.2 meters in diameter.
And at the top of the dome, there is an opening (skylight) called an oculus (Latin for "eye"), which is 9 meters in diameter and 1.5 meters thick, designed for lighting.
The interior of the temple was packed with many tourists. Although it is a large dome with a diameter of 43.2 meters, when I actually stood before it, it didn't feel like such a massive structure. Also, the 9-meter-wide hole pierced through it—despite the dome being 1.5 meters thick, I didn't feel an overwhelming sense of scale.
However, the intense light streaming through the hole in the dome of the dark temple, surrounded by solid concrete, had an overwhelming power.
Light that shifts with the movement of the sun.
This hole in the dome is a literal "hole."
There is no glass or anything else attached.
When it rains, the rain enters the building just as it is.
Nature, including the wind, enters the interior of the building directly. I felt that the light coming through that hole had a strength completely different from light filtered through glass.
The Pantheon is an architecture of light.
Or rather, it is an architecture that is nothing but light.
The Pantheon proves that architecture can captivate people with light alone.
If there were glass in this hole...
I probably wouldn't have been so moved.
Perhaps overwhelming emotion is something granted by what remains after everything else has been stripped away.
This was an experience from when I was around twenty.
I wonder what I would think if I went now...
I hope to visit again someday.
Until next time.