architects

Modern distinctions between architecture and engineering do not readily apply to the work of architects throughout Greek and Roman history. In the design of buildings, architects’ roles and approaches changed over time. In the Classical period, Greek architects’ design specifications may have determined the forms of individual elements. According to an alternative view, the on-site nature of architects’ work may have coincided with a design process that overlapped with construction, in which masons contributed to design in a collaborative way. Beyond architects’ traditional responsibility for supplying full-scale plastic and graphic models, design by way of reduced-scale drawing was well established by the Hellenistic period. The Imperial era exploitation of Roman concrete gave architects a greater ability to project volumes through reduced-scale drawing. Alongside career architects, amateur architects from the social elite oversaw projects in service to their communities or for their own leisure or use. In the Archaic period, architects of monumental Greek temples were responsible for the building phases and machines used in the construction process, with an increasing focus on formal design during the Classical period. Architects travelling in pursuit of commissions spread architectural ideas and influences throughout antiquity. Architects of Ionian works may have arrived in Italy as early as the Archaic period. In the Middle Republic, the presence of Greek architects in Roman environs is reflected in textual sources as well as in the use of Greek marble, building types, and spatial layouts. Similarly, the Roman architect Cossutius worked in Hellenistic contexts during this same period.