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But there isn't much quarried stone in the Pantheon besides the entrance columns and some interior surfaces. Roman architecture is pretty much all about bricks
by usrusr 8y ago
But there isn't much quarried stone in the Pantheon besides the entrance columns and some interior surfaces. Roman architecture is pretty much all about bricks and mortar (and in case of the Pantheon, lots of them). Many of the types of quarried stone they sometimes used for adding an expensive-looking surface are crumbling much faster than the brick.
- notahacker 8y agoIn the case of the Pantheon, it's bricks and mortar supporting a cast concrete roof. Safe to say that if it hadn't been continuously occupied for two millenia by people willing to spend a lot on the upkeep of their churches, it would now be an attractive pile of rubble
- usrusr 8y agoNobody is denying the importance of maintenance, but just keeping plants out and the roof from seeping will get you a long way. The most important effect of the use as a church was that it limited (but far from completely prevented) spoilification, and that (cheaper) replacements were installed when the original gilded bronze roof was taken. Much of what we intuitively assume to be natural decay is the result of mining disused buildings for materials how the damage inflicted by that then accelerates natural decay.