Panel 8.10 – The aesthetics of urban production and trade


Organisation/Vorsitz:

  • Annette Haug (Universität Kiel)
  • Johannes Lipps (Universität Tübingen)

Panel abstract

The relevance of economy in ancient society found its visual expression in the effort that was put into the layout and design of 'economic spaces.': spaces of production and trade. They were not conceived purely with functionality in mind, and were often enhanced with elaborate programmes of decoration and precious materials. Within urban landscapes, these buildings were sometimes even positioned to take advantage of different visual perspectives, such as a view from the sea or a river. At the same time, economic spaces could also engage the other senses: most were characterised by specific sounds and odours that contributed to the general aesthetic 'design.' Above all, however, it was the people acting in those places who created particular commercial atmospheres. Thus, design and agency were intrinsically related. On the one hand, the needs, behaviour and expectations of commercial agents shaped economic spaces. On the other hand, the (architectural) design and décor of the spaces induced specific forms of agency and perception. In recent years, a renewed emphasis on the economy has offered important insight into ancient material culture. But the aesthetics of urban spaces of production and trade has rarely been the subject of research. This panel therefore wants to outline this phenomenon for different chronological horizons with regard to the following questions: - How are economic spaces staged within urban settings? How does their design refer to (or differ from) the surrounding urban landscape? - Which strategies are chosen to aestheticise economic buildings? Are there specific forms of 'economic' design/décor? - What might have been the purpose of decorating these buildings? - In what way do people and architecture affect each other in economic contexts? - How are economic spaces perceived? - Do written or visual sources reflect on the aesthetic qualities of economic buildings? - In which historical (temporal and chronological) situations do economic spaces become aesthetically prominent within urbanscapes? The questions will be addressed for all 'ancient' contexts, from the Minoan period to Late Antiquity. Systematic approaches to the topic are welcome, as are case studies on specific contexts, literary or historical reflexions.

Paper abstracts

1. Annette Haug (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) / Johannes Lipps (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen)

Introduction
The introduction aims at an historical contextualization of the research questions that the panel will ask. On the one hand, it traces the history of aesthetic theory from Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten to Gernot Böhme with a special focus on the aesthetic perception of spaces. On the other hand, it outlines prominent research traditions of economic theory with regard to questions of consumption. On a theoretical level, these two traditions have rarely been brought together, though in praxis it is well known that aesthetics and economy are merging. This can be seen in modern warehouses, but it also now appears within the field of Classical Archaeology. A brief history of research, however, will show that a systematic discussion of this subject is still lacking.

 

2. Mantha Zarmakoupi (University of Birmingham)

The aesthetics of branding in late Hellenistic Delos
This paper will analyse the architectural and visual strategies that merchants of late Hellenistic Delos employed in order to promote their economic interests and fashion their corporate identity.
Delos was at the centre of the emerging Roman Empire’s trade network with the Greek East, after the Roman senate granted the statute of ateleia (freedom from taxes) to the island in 167 BCE. The result of this economic development was an unprecedented population increase due to new settlers and, by consequence, a rapid urbanization attested by the formation of new neighbourhoods and harbour facilities and the redevelopment of existing urban and harbour areas of the island. On the one hand, merchants transformed the urban fabric and waterfront façade of Delos by creating prominent commercial hubs within the city and developing extensive harbour infrastructures around the island and, on the other, they employed domestic cults alongside merchant associations as a means of fashioning their corporate identity and promoting their economic interests.
By tackling the ways in which the economic spaces of the emporion of Delos shaped the city’s urban form as well as the ways in which diverse groups of merchants articulated their commercial aspirations in both public and private spheres, this paper will address the aesthetics of branding in late Hellenistic Delos.

 

3. Armando Cristilli (University of Rome 'Tor Vergata)

Aesthetics as approval of urban trade? The porch and its variations on the main façade of the Roman macellum.
This essay focus up the role played by the porch on the main façade of the Roman macella in the urban layout of host cities. Starting with previous studies about this subject and using some interesting case studies (e.g. macella of Gerasa in Jordan and Cirene in Libya), it highlights how this aesthetic was basic it to emergence of the foodstuff markets in the culture of the community of buyers: in fact, these units indicated the presence of relative buildings, claiming for themselves autonomy in the total urban approval. But this kind of porch, in turn, respond to the aesthetic exigencies of the local context too, so it offers us a variety of artistic and architectural solutions dependent on the cultural and urban background of the host city. It is the element that allowed a commercial space with a precise functionality and elaborate decoration and architecture program to be approved by citizens in the relationship between the urban space system and the space of fruition.

 

4. Taylor Lauritsen (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, CAU)

Wall Decoration in Roman Commercial Space
Excavations in Pompeii, Herculaneum and other well-preserved urban contexts have shown that Roman cities were awash with painted decoration. Art situated in the domestic sphere has received the bulk of scholarly attention over the years, but public wall paintings represent an equally compelling corpus of material with which to work. In the street, wall decoration was positioned at the centre of a dialectical relationship between the artist/patron and the consumer. The diversity of images (and graffiti) applied to the façades of Roman buildings reflect the range of messages that were occurring between individuals. Naturally, context played a central role in structuring these ‘conversations.’ The public relations aims of an elite householder, the owner of a fullonica and a shopkeeper were different, and were reflected in their respective choices of décor. Although recent studies have emphasised the economic importance of commercial facilities, and, at the same time, interest in ‘sub-elite’ art, public graffiti and façade architecture has grown, wall decoration in and around shops remains a comparatively neglected topic. While individual structures have been subject to thorough decorative analyses, no comprehensive examination of commercial decoration has been produced. This paper takes preliminary steps in that direction by exploring some common images and ornamental designs found on the walls of Pompeian tabernae.

 

5. Pia Kastenmeier (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz)

Rural Pompeii: vineyards, leisure, gladiators and Priapos
Spätestens seit Anfang des 1. Jhs. v.Chr. ist das Hinterland Pompejis von einem dichten Netz kleiner und mittelgroßer Gutshöfe überzogen. In der Hauptsache wurde hier Wein angebaut und an Ort und Stelle weiterverarbeitet. Für diesen Produktionszweig haben sich offensichtlich auch viele Immobilienbesitzer innerhalb der Stadt entschieden. Im Bereich um das Amphitheater wurden zahlreiche große Weingärten freigelegt. An die eigentlichen Rebpflanzungen sind architektonische Strukturen und Ausstattungselemente angeschlossen, die darauf schließen lassen, dass auf diesen Grundstücken nicht nur Wein angebaut und hergestellt, sondern auch konsumiert wurde. Die Weingärten wurden zum Teil wohl erst nach dem Erdbeben von 62 n.Chr. angelegt.
Am Beispiel der sogenannten osteria del gladiatore (I 20, 1-3), einem Weingarten mit Außentriclinium, kann das den Kunden und Besuchern präsentierte Gesamtkonzept der pompejanischen Weingärten gut aufgezeigt werden. Gladiator und Priapos tauchen als Statuengruppe auf. Wanddekor spielt eine sehr untergeordnete Rolle. Alles erscheint ländlich und rustikal.
Auch das Verhältnis der Weingärten zu den städtischen Strukturen und Prozessen soll besprochen werden. Mit dieser Nutzung der Immobilien kommt viel Land in die Stadt, und Pompeji wird in der Umgebung des Amphitheaters zur "greener city".

 

6. Simona Perna

Architecture, décor and aesthetics of a statio negotiatorum from the early Imperial period at Murecine (Campania)
At modern Murecine (about 600 m south of ancient Pompeii) rescue excavations uncovered a public building complex unparalleled within its urbanscape. Built in the Julio-Claudian period at the hub of an intense production and distribution network, it enjoyed two stunning visual perspectives: the Sarno river mouth with its luxurious flora and the bay of Naples. Rooms decorated with marble and superb IV-Style frescoes opening on a porticus triplex would have stimulated visitors’ sensorial perceptions while the large garden with water fountains, myrtle bushes and fish-ponds contributed to the general aesthetic design. Evidence points at a “5-star” hospitium or statio negotiatorum that catering for a high-ranking clientele (commercial agents?) must have represented an ideal stage for business-orientated social interaction. From at least AD 62 the building belonged to the Sulpicii, wealthy bankers and traders from Puteoli. It also emerged that in AD 79 the site was undergoing major construction and renovation work especially in the bath complex area, as the discovery of dozens of rare Greco scritto marble slabs waiting to be set in place suggested.
This paper will use the evidence from Murecine to offer insight into dynamics, strategies and purposes behind the “aesthetisation” of a Roman public economic building through an analysis of its architecture and interior décor. The ultimate objective would be to re-evoke Murecine’s aesthetic prominence and meaning within its urbanscape.

 

7. Michael Feige (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, CAU)

Productive Installations of Roman Villas as Scenery for the Luxurious Living and the Representation of the Urban Elite
The cultivation and processing of wine and olives, besides the growing of grain, were the two main sectors of profit-oriented agriculture in Roman Italy. Both branches of production left their mark on the remains of roman rural buildings on the Apennine peninsula in the form of wine and oil presses and storage facilities.
In addition to the remains of these market-oriented facilities the archaeological sites of Roman villas contain a series of agricultural production plants which, in regard to their composition and furnishing, clearly go beyond the usual characteristics of this kind of installations. Through the use of valuable building materials and room types usually associated with elevated residential architecture the facilities are upgraded from the normal functional frame of agriculture and put together as prestigious ensembles. The paper examines the extent to which these installations, aside from their superior equipment, differ further from the normal economic facilities. In this context, two possible interpretations are discussed:

  1. The plants were still associated with real productive processes and have to be understood as a proud representation of a successful entrepreneur.
  2. The seemingly productive installations were turned into pure scenery in the staging of a romantic agricultural image for the otium of the Roman upper class.

 

8. Wolfgang Filser (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Emulation is the Leitmotif. Conspicuous Consumption in the Casa della Fontana Piccola
The atrium house is named after the small mosaic-fountain in the garden. Well known are the landscape paintings, which cover the walls of its pseudo-peristyle court. With great attention to detail the scenes show maritime villas along with groups of figures, islets, mountains and woodlands. Due to the large format of the frescoes they differ from the miniaturist vedutas from Pompei, Oplontis and Stabiae, which show the villae maritimae from a much closer viewpoint, as if taken with a telephoto. The fountain with its decoration in form of small bronze figures together with the villa paintings form an ideological system, which can be explained easily by means of Veblen's theory of emulation. The architecture as well as the paintings and the other artworks aim at the real maritime villas with their different artistic and architectonic designs and which are imaginable behind the walls of the pseudo-peristyle on the coast of the gulf of Naples. Very clearly we may grasp here the way in which a normal citizen tried to integrate the unreachable luxurious life of the big landowners into his modest house by assembling images and furnishings that reproduce in reduced scale (and price) the decoration of the villae maritimae. Or vice versa: we observe how the economic power of the super-rich works its way into the design of the houses of the lower social strata, exerting what one might call "emulative pressure".

 

9. Jessica Bartz (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Trading between judicial, political, religious and social requirements. The economic history of he Roman Forum
Public spaces did not function as static areas, but as dynamically changed, heterogeneously animated and multisensory experienced spaces. At the Roman Forum markets, speeches and elections, courts and assemblies, rituals, processions, triumphs and gladiatorial contests can be located. This led on the one hand to a heavy functional concurrence, on the other hand all these temporary events required flexible constructions, which organized and structured the space and supported the specific function. Therefore, the aesthetic perception of the Roman Forum continuously differed, complicated by the current changing needs depending on the political structure of the society. Depending on the quantity and quality of one specific function, the appearance of the appropriate required architectures varied from a temporal small structure over huge (semi-)ephemeral constructions to permanent monumental buildings.
The paper will focus on the economic history of the Roman Forum, in which or close by trading and commercial structures primarily belonged to the visual experience, but were always competed by the divergent functions. The economic functions were partly displaced to other areas, regularised to precious objects or transferred to the inner parts of monumental buildings. The ancient sources do not tell us about pragmatic reasons but they mention the annoying by-products, like dirt and smell, which did not have been appropriate for the aesthetic perception of this outstanding urban space.