Five Design Lessons Along the Roman Road
The adage “all roads lead to Rome” holds literally true in Lacoste, France, home of SCAD Lacoste. This medieval village nestled deep in the lush Luberon Valley, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of where Marseille meets the wine-dark Mediterranean, perches alongside the first Roman road in what is now France. This road, the Via Domitia (“Way of the Gods”) led to the very heart of one of history’s greatest empires.
Every summer, we invite first-year SCAD students (or “Pre-Bees,” as we call them) to Lacoste to participate in teambuilding workshops, learn skills to support university-level study, and explore the mesmeric landscape surrounding Lacoste. During this weeklong experience, these brilliant new SCAD students look to their future professions and inventions, in part, by studying the design brilliance of the past.
Pont Julien: Design as Function
Before Peugeots and Citroëns crisscrossed Provence, teams of Roman horses pulled carts down the Via Domitia, which stretched from the Alps of northern Italy to the Pyrenees in Spain. Two millennia later, only one of the road’s original bridges remains. The Pont Julien, ten minutes east of SCAD Lacoste, was named in honor of Julius Caesar himself. Its builders quarried limestone from nearby deposits and carved each stone to fit perfectly against its mate — no mortar necessary. This meticulous process was and is more sustainable than many later methods of stonemasonry and required fewer materials. For SCAD students, Pont Julien serves as a powerful exemplar of elegant design: simple, sustainable, and still standing after 2,000 years.
Glanum: Design as Identity
A few kilometers south of Lacoste, near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, lie the ruins of the pre-Roman city of Glanum. Celto-Ligurians built this fortified town around a shrine to their god Glanis between the 7th and 2nd centuries B.C.
In the first century B.C., those early Ligurians began trading with the Greek colony in Marseille, which led to a transformation in Glanum’s architecture toward the Hellenic style. The neighborly vibes were short-lived, though, as tensions rose between the Celto-Ligurians and the Greeks and (please excuse the pun) all Hellenic broke loose.
The Greeks soon called on Rome for help, and Glanum was transformed once again. In the first century A.D., Romans razed the city and built over it, adding magnificent structures that still stand today, such as the triumphal arch and mausoleum pictured below. About a thousand years ago Roman Glanum became a ghost town and was mostly buried in silt sediment until excavation began in 1921. Incroyable!
For SCAD students, the lesson of Glanum is that design has the power to convey an entire culture. I use trips to Glanum to ask students the all-important questions: How will your identity be communicated through what you create? And will it last?
The Triumphal Arch of Glanum: Design as Marker
Known as one of two Les Antiques of Glanum, Caesar’s monument was built early in the first century A.D. to celebrate Roman rule. Triumphal arches emerged as singularly Roman structures, along with aqueducts and amphitheaters. A Roman arch was intended to commemorate glorious occasions (the accession of a new emperor, say) and to declare, for all to see, that Rome Is Here.
A Roman arch could be built as a single free-standing structure, entirely self-supporting — which allowed builders to incorporate decorative elements on all sides. Personally, I can’t help but notice the honeycomb pattern set in the ceiling of the arch (hmm, wonder why). This coffering (a term for recessed ceiling panels) was not purely ornamental, as coffering helps reduce the mass of stone, one reason the technique was employed in the rebuilding of the Pantheon.
I like to remind students that studying the arch should imbue them with the profound knowledge that great design outlives the designer. Will one of them make something that future students will study a millennium from now? Entirely possible!
The Mausoleum: Design as Story
Another lesson of Roman design around SCAD Lacoste is that great design — design that endures — tells a story. This extraordinarily well-preserved mausoleum tower of Glanum dates to 40 B.C. Its striking relief panels depict scenes from the greatest narratives in Roman mythology: a battle with Amazons, the Calydonian boar hunt, the Trojan Horse. SCAD students trace their fingers across the tower’s surface and feel these myths turn material. A tetrapylon (four-sided sculpture) of Medusa and a frieze of Tritons offered protection for the Roman Julii family to whom they belonged. I’m always so eager to see how our students will convey their own stories through their inventions in animation, film, fashion, architecture, and more. Stories that speak to the human condition have staying power. More than 2,000 years later, and we’re still talking about the Calydonian boar, thanks in part to the mausoleum!
Pont du Gard: Design as Advancement
Study in Lacoste is incomplete without a visit to the astounding Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct constructed circa 60 A.D. that still stands outside Nîmes. Aqueducts changed the very structure of Roman society — water was suddenly readily available in homes, fountains, latrines, and the Roman favorite: public baths.
Vitruvius asserted that structures should be firmitas, utilitas, and venustas — durable, useful, and beautiful. These features find a perfect harmony in the Pont du Gard! Those old Roman hydraulics engineers could not have predicted how many different purposes their masterwork would serve as the centuries passed. In the Middle Ages, the Pont du Gard was a tollgate, and then a road bridge from the 18th to 20th centuries. In 2000, (which is almost how old it is!) the Pont du Gard was closed to traffic and solidified its identity as a feat of engineering and a work of art, to be studied by all who visit.
To all who travel to SCAD Lacoste, do as the Romans do — seek, find, study, invent! Rent a Renault or travel by Roman cart. Whatever means you take, get there. Then, reflect on the durability of great design — dream, and venture forth.
