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DR. BETH HARRIS: We're standing in the piazza,
the square in front of the Pantheon.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: This is the best
preserved ancient Roman monument.
And yet, look at the sense of age.
Look at the weathering.
Look at the way in which its history is
revealed through its surface.
It's been attacked.
Its original bronze fittings have been ripped off.
Look at the numerous holes, for instance,
in pediment, that tell of all the different purposes
that this building has been put to.
Originally a temple to the gods, then
sanctified and made into a church.
Now of course, it's also a major tourist attraction.
This is a building that has had just a tremendously complex
history.
And you can see it all over its surface.
DR. BETH HARRIS: We're seeing it very differently than anyone
in antiquity would have seen it.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: In fact, we're
standing many feet higher than we
would have been in the ancient world.
Rome accumulated elevation from the debris of history.
Once, you would have stepped up to the porch of the Pantheon.
Now, we actually lie downhill.
DR. BETH HARRIS: And the space in front of the Pantheon
was framed by a colonnade.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: The colonnade and the other buildings
that would have originally surrounded
this building would have obscured
the barrel on the side, and so that we would have only seen
this very traditional temple front.
DR. BETH HARRIS: Exactly.
It would have been something very familiar.
And the surprise was what happened
as you approached the threshold.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: I have to tell you
that I'm absolutely in love with those massive columns.
They are supported by these enormous marble bases.
They rise up unarticulated, without any fluting,
and in these massive fragments of what were originally
marble Corinthian capitals.
These are monoliths.
They're single pieces of stone.
Unlike Greek columns, they were not segmented.
They were not cut.
And they were imported from Egypt,
which was symbolic of Rome's power
over most of the Mediterranean under the emperor Hadrian, who
was responsible for the construction of this building.
So let's go in.
Let's go under the porch.
Let's go through those massive bronze doors.
We just walked in under the strictly rectilinear porch.
And then the space opens up.
DR. BETH HARRIS: Opens up into this vast circular space.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: The width of the building
and the height of the building completely
fills my field of vision.
And it is, in a sense, an expression
of the limits of my sight.
Unlike a basilica, this is a radial building.
That is to say that it has a central point and radiates
outward from that central point.
But what's fascinating about this building
is that it's not a traditional radial structure,
in that the point would be on the floor.
The central point-- its focus-- is midway
between the floor and the ceiling,
and midway between its walls.
It is large enough, and geometrically perfect enough,
to accommodate a perfect sphere.
DR. BETH HARRIS: And, as soon as you walk in,
you notice that there's a kind of obsession
with circles, with rectangles, with squares,
with those kinds of perfect geometrical shapes.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: This is a structure
that is concerned with the ideal geometries.
But it also locates our place within those geometries.
DR. BETH HARRIS: But the experience
of being in this space is anything but static.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: No, it's really dynamic, in fact.
One of the causes of that is if we move our eye up the columns,
you can see that they're beautifully
aligned with the frieze of false windows
that are just above them.
But then all of that does not align with the dome.
DR. BETH HARRIS: That's right.
They don't align with the coffers
that we see in the dome.
What that does is creates this feeling
that the barrel that the dome rests on
is independent from the dome, and almost
makes it feel as if the dome could rotate.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: That complex visual relationship
between the dome and the decorative structures
in the barrel remind us that the actual structural system here
is dependent on concrete, and not these decorative columns
that we see on the interior.
DR. BETH HARRIS: Exactly.
There's thick, thick barrel of concrete
that supports the dome.
Because a dome pushes down and out,
Roman architects had to think about how
to support the weight and pressure of the dome.
And one of the things that's doing that
are the thick concrete walls of the barrel.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: You know, the Romans
had really perfected concrete.
And this is one of the buildings that shows what was possible.
This is shaping space, because concrete could be continuous.
It could be built upward continuously with wooden forms,
which would then be removed and then could open the space up
in a way that post and lintel architecture never could.
DR. BETH HARRIS: So concrete could
be laid onto a wooden support or mold,
and could be shaped in a way that you
can't do with post and lintel architecture.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Well, what it does
is it allows for this vast, open, uninterrupted space.
We walk into the space and we feel freed.
We are given a tremendous amount of freedom
in terms of how we move and how we see through this space.
DR. BETH HARRIS: Because of the Roman use of concrete,
the idea that architecture could be something
that shaped space and that could have a different kind
of relationship to the viewer.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: It is even now, in the 21st century,
awesome.
The emperor Hadrian, under whose direction
this building was constructed, apparently loved the building
and loved to actually have visitors come to him here.
One could imagine him even in the back apse
opposite the entrance.
DR. BETH HARRIS: The Pantheon originally
contained sculptures of the gods, of the deified emperors,
we think.
It really was about the divine.
It was about the earthly sphere meeting the heavenly sphere.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And also in some way
about human perception.
Look how rich the surface is.
DR. BETH HARRIS: And there would've
been much more in antiquity, when the coffers probably
had gilded rosettes.
As we look at the drum, we see colored marble.
We see purples, and oranges, and blues.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Remember, these marbles
are taken from around the Roman Empire.
So this is really an expression of Hadrian's wealth
and Hadrian's power.
This is the empire being able to reach across the globe
to draw in these precious materials.
DR. BETH HARRIS: Perhaps the most exciting part
of this space is the oculus.
Because it almost seems to defy reason.
How could there be a hole in the center of that dome?
It doesn't make sense.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Well, it's the only light that
comes into this space, with the exception of some light wells
in some of the recessed areas, and of course,
the grill just above the door, and the door itself.
There is one great window.
And my students for years have asked, is there glass?
And of course, the answer is no.
When it rains, the floor gets wet.
DR. BETH HARRIS: The perfect circle of that oculus.
The perfect circle of the dome.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: The oculus is critical in the issues
that you had raised before.
This is a building that in some way
is a reflection of the movement of the heavens.
And what happens is light moves into this space from the sun.
It projects often a very sharp circle on the dome,
and moves across the floor of the building
as the sun moves across the sky, and then
eventually creeps up the other side of the dome.
And so this entire building functions in some ways
almost like a sundial.
It makes visible the movements of the heavens
and makes them manifest here on Earth.
We've been talking about this building
as a great monument of the ancient world.
But it was admired and copied in the Renaissance,
and in fact is perhaps the most influential building
in architecture in the Renaissance
and in the modern era.
I mean, think about all of the different architects that
have referenced this building.
I'm looking down at the floors and the geometry
that you spoke of, the circles and squares.
And I'm thinking about the pavement
in front of the Guggenheim Museum
on Fifth Avenue in New York.
DR. BETH HARRIS: Actually, once you know the Pantheon,
you begin to see copies of it and pieces of it everywhere.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: It's true.
The dome especially is perhaps the most copied element,
especially with the oculus.
You can see that, for instance, in the National Gallery
in Washington.
You can see it in almost every Neoclassical building
in Europe and North America.
But before we leave, I'd love to go and pay homage
to Raphael, who's buried just over there.
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