Sadly, I can't find a good article online to link to here. But we talked about the Pantheon in Rome. The ceiling is a dome, which is the largest unsupported dome ceiling in the world. It was built by the Romans, and it has a hole in the middle through which sun, rain, whatever can come. However, when you're inside, you have the sensation that the rain doesn't come in. This is due to several factors:
- in that area it is often windy, and the rain falls at an angle, therefore not entering the building, though it appears that it is.
- the Romans who built the Pantheon built an amazing drainage system, so that the floor does not stay wet, making it appear that the water isn't even falling.
- the building is very tall and light amounts of rain evaporate before falling all the way to the floor.
In all actuality, if it's pouring rain outside, you will get wet, although it won't really appear to be raining within the building.
We also talked about columns. The Greeks influenced the Roman columns, however, the Romans were very showy people and definitely wanted fancier columns than the Greeks had. So, just to confuse all the poor students of ancient architecture millenia later, they decided to mix all the basic styles of columns together and create a bazillion new types of columns and columnal decorations. Thank you, Romans. I appreciate it very much.
My apologies that this post is so incredibly lame - I haven't felt very well the last couple of days and therefore have been laying in bed watching Lion King instead of playing in Madrid like my group has. I also therefore have no pictures of my own to post. Instead, here is an excellent picture of the Pantheon:
Cool, eh? I thought so. I promise to not be lame and have something more interesting in the next few days. Friday we're going to Extremadura, which is on the western side of Spain, so that will be very cool. We also plan to tour the CCM (MTC) here in Madrid and see the temple Thursday night.
And as a side note, I drank Coca-Cola for the very first time yesterday. Not bad, though it definitely has a unique flavor!
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