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Changing Identities in the Oecumene: Geography and Architecture in the Greco-Roman World

This chapter is based on a keynote paper I delivered at an international conference, The Multiple Faces of Identity in the Designed Environment, at Nottingham Trent University in September 2008. It examines the shifting relationships between perceptions and representations of geography, empire and identity in the Greco-Roman world, and how these informed the itineraries and symbolism of ritual and architecture in imperial Rome. The theme relates to a long-standing interest in connections between architecture and geography, which began during my period as a Rome Scholar in Architecture (1986-88) when I researched pilgrimage and conversion in Early Christianity. It has more recently included investigations of Jesuit missionary activities in China which formed part of a funded research project as a Paul Mellon Rome Fellow (April-July 2012). The present chapter considers the geographical frontiers, and cultural differences, between Rome, the Mediterranean and those regions north of the Danube (Germania and Dacia), and how these informed the symbolic meanings of buildings and their settings. Applying the Greek concept of ‘oecumene’ (‘known world’), the study examines the notion of Roman identity as a largely unstable and ill-defined construct. It reveals how this construct was influenced by territorial expansion and conquest of empire, which served as a rich reservoir of symbolic material for architecture and ritual evidenced in the specific examples of Trajan’s Forum and the Pantheon. The chapter traces a direct connection between emerging notions of geographical knowledge in the Roman world and built form. It concludes by bringing the investigation to the 21st century by examining the notion of ‘oecumene’ in the contemporary age of globalization, questioning how expectations of boundless zones of communication – whether virtual or actual - have a bearing on the spatial/geographical understanding of identity.