How Rome's Ruins Built Byzantine, Islamic & Carolingian Architecture | City History #12

Rome fell. But it didn't vanish. It was scattered and recycled: columns, walls, and one big idea that a single city could be the center of the world. In this episode of CityDesign, Martin Felsen follows that inheritance as it’s funneled into three rising civilizations: Byzantine, Islamic, and Carolingian. Each transformed Roman ruins into something new: one walled the old city and defended it for a thousand years; one kept Rome's cities and replaced the forum with the mosque; and one, ruling a land with almost no cities left, tried to rebuild Rome from stone ruins. Three heirs. One inheritance. Three answers to the question every civilization after Rome had to face: what is a city actually for? What you’ll learn: Why Constantinople was built as a "New Rome": Christian from day one, and designed to be the New Jerusalem on earth How the Theodosian Walls (a moat, an outer wall, and a 40-foot inner wall with 96 towers) held for a thousand years, until gunpowder was invented Why a besieged city's survival depends as much on hidden water as on walls, and how the Basilica Cistern kept Constantinople alive How Hagia Sophia rose from the ashes of a city nearly burned down How the pendentive geometry allowed Byzantine builders to set a round dome on a square room, turning geometry into theology: heaven, earth, and the Trinity How Rome built with weight, and New Rome built with light How the Dome of the Rock announced a new faith How the Great Mosque of Damascus is three religions and three empires assembled inside one set of Roman walls How the hypostyle mosque (a field of columns) was designed to expand again and again How Córdoba's double-tiered arches solved the problem of building a tall structure from short salvaged Roman columns Why Charlemagne modeled his chapel at Aachen on San Vitale in Ravenna, and how he shipped real Roman marble over the Alps to build it How the Carolingian "westwork" at Corvey invented the twin-towered facade of Gothic cathedrals that followed About me Martin Felsen is an architect and professor at Illinois Tech's College of Architecture in Chicago. He co-founded UrbanLab, an architecture and urban design firm. Martin is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 0:37 - Designed to Last 8:30 - The New Center 14:39 - New Rome, again 19:58 - Closing Attributions This episode’s script is adapted from many sources, including: Ettinghausen, Richard, Oleg Grabar, and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina. Islamic Art and Architecture, 650–1250. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Kostof, Spiro. The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. Mango, Cyril. Byzantine Architecture. New York: Rizzoli, 1985. McKitterick, Rosamond. Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Mumford, Lewis. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961. City photos: UNESCO Videos:    • Damascus, Al-Hamidiyah Market Walking Tour...      • Jerusalem 4K, Israel 🇮🇱 | The Holiest City...