My Science School

Skyscrapers are very tall buildings, usually more than 20 storeys high. Their weight is supported by a steel frame rather than outside walls. They are a feature of many large cities, especially in North America and East Asia, where the high price of land leads developers to build tall, thin buildings that occupy the minimum amount of land space, rather than low-rise, sprawling ones.

The first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building, was built in Chicago in 1884 following a fire that devastated the city. Soon, skyscrapers started to appear in New York as well as Chicago, often being built higher and higher in competition with one another. In recent years, Japan, Malaysia and China are among nations that have joined the race to build the world's tallest buildings.

The John Hancock Center in Chicago, USA, was completed in 1968. A skyscraper with both offices and residential apartments; it is the tallest multi-purpose building in the world and the seventh tallest skyscraper of all. It is 344 metres high but its twin antennae add a further 105 metres, making it a total of nearly 450 metres. It has a hull and core construction—a strong central concrete core with an open space between it and the steel frame. The frame has a triangular grid to give the structure maximum strength.

The John Hancock Center is like a city in a tower. It has shops, a bank, a post office, a restaurant, a swimming pool and a fitness centre. There are 50 lifts (it takes only 39 seconds to ascend to the 94th floor). A car park with spaces for 1200 cars takes up the first seven floors. Cars drive up a spiral ramp to get to it.

The building has more than 2000 kilometres of electric wiring, carrying enough electricity to supply the equivalent of a city of 30,000 people. More than 2.75 million litres of water are consumed each day. Computers warn of any fault in the skyscraper's service systems.

People have constructed buildings from ancient times as homes to provide shelter, monuments or places of worship. Earth, wood and stone have always been used as building materials. Bricks, hardened clay, were first used in the Middle East in about 3000 BC. Concrete is made by mixing sand, cement and water. Reinforced concrete dates from the late 1800s. Often used in modern buildings, it contains steel wires or rods to provide extra strength.

Buildings belong to one of two types. The first type has solid walls, called load-bearing walls that support the floors and roof of the building. The second type has a framework of wood, steel or concrete that bears the weight of the building.

Most buildings need foundations (a solid base) to prevent them from sinking into the ground or falling over. Foundations can be footings (underground walls), flat rafts, or underground supporting pillars called piles that are driven into the ground.

TALL STRUCTURES

The Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt was the world's tallest structure for nearly 4000 years, until the great age of cathedral building began in medieval Europe. Lincoln Cathedral in England, which was built in 1311, had a great spire that made it slightly taller than the pyramid, although it was blown down in a storm in 1549. The Washington Monument in Washington, USA, became the world's tallest structure in 1884, before the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, almost doubled the record five years later. The skyscrapers of the 20th century claimed the honour until the CN Tower, still the world's tallest self-supporting structure, was built in Toronto in 1976.

Picture Credit : Google

Skyscrapers have a frame, usually made of steel or concrete, to support the floors and walls, which are attached to the frame. The frame is rather like the skeleton inside a human body. It is not designed to be completely rigid, but to sway a little in high winds, thus reducing the force of the wind upon the structure.

A skyscraper is a continuously habitable high-rise building that has over 40 floors and is taller than approximately 150 m (492 ft). Historically, the term first referred to buildings with 10 to 20 floors in the 1880s. The definition shifted with advancing construction technology during the 20th century. Skyscrapers may host offices, hotels, residential spaces, and retail spaces. For buildings above a height of 300 m (984 ft), the term supertall skyscrapers can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m (1,969 ft) are classified as megatall skyscraper.

One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls. These curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete.

Modern skyscrapers' walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterized by large surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames and curtain walls. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a small surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a tubular structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic, and other lateral loads. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, which in some cases is also structurally required.

Picture Credit : Google

Concrete is a mixture of sand, water and cement, a powder made of lime and clay. Far from being a new material, concrete was used by the Romans in the first century AD to build the dome of the Pantheon in Rome.

Concrete is a friend of the environment in all stages of its life span, from raw material production to demolition, making it a natural choice for sustainable home construction. Here are some of the reasons why, according to the Portland Cement Association and the Environmental Council of Concrete Organizations:

Resource efficiency. The predominant raw material for the cement in concrete is limestone, the most abundant mineral on earth. Concrete can also be made with fly ash, slag cement, and silica fume, all waste byproducts from power plants, steel mills, and other manufacturing facilities.

Durability. Concrete builds durable, long-lasting structures that will not rust, rot, or burn. Life spans for concrete building products can be double or triple those of other common building materials.

Thermal mass. Homes built with concrete walls, foundations, and floors are highly energy efficient because they take advantage of concretes inherent thermal massor ability to absorb and retain heat. This means homeowners can significantly cut their heating and cooling bills and install smaller-capacity HVAC equipment.

Reflectivity. Concrete minimizes the effects that produce urban heat islands. Light-colored concrete pavements and roofs absorb less heat and reflect more solar radiation than dark-colored materials, such as asphalt, reducing air conditioning demands in the summer.

Ability to retain storm water. Paved surfaces tend to be impervious and can block natural water infiltration into the soil. This creates an imbalance in the natural ecosystem and leads to problems such as erosion, flash floods, water table depletion, and pollution. Pervious concrete is a special type of structural concrete with a sponge-like network of voids that water passes through readily. When used for driveways, sidewalks, parking lots, and other pavements, pervious concrete can help to retain storm water runoff and replenish local water supplies.

Minimal waste. Concrete can be produced in the quantities needed for each project, reducing waste. After a concrete structure has served its original purpose, the concrete can be crushed and recycled into aggregate for use in new concrete pavements or as backfill or road base.

Picture Credit : Google

An architect’s plans give all the information needed to build the structure shown. The plans show the materials to be used, how they fit together, and all the measurements necessary to complete the building. Plans usually show several elevations (different views) of the structure, including a floor plan and a plan of each side of the building. Nowadays, computers are increasingly used to draw up plans. They can provide lists of the materials and equipment needed as the plans are drawn, and work out costings.

Building plans are the set of drawings which consists of floor plan, site plan, cross sections, elevations, electrical, plumbing and landscape drawings for the ease of construction at site. Drawings are the medium of passing the views and concepts of an architect or designer into reality.

Site plan

Site plan is comprehensive detailed drawing of the building or an apartment representing whole plan of a building. It shows property boundaries and means of access to the site, and nearby structures if they are relevant to the design.

For a construction project, the site plan also needs to show all the services connections like drainage and sewer lines, water supply, electrical and communications cables, exterior lighting etc.

Its a first design that is made for any project before going into detailing process. Drawing up a site plan is a tool for deciding both the site layout and the size and orientation of proposed new buildings.

These drawings should comply with the local development codes, including restrictions on historical sites. It acts as a legal agreement for the permission of construction from the government body. For this, it is required that the site plan is made by a licensed professional like architect, engineer, landscape architect or land surveyor.

Floor Plan

A plan means, top view of any building or object. Floor plan is the most fundamental architectural diagram, a view from above showing the arrangement of spaces in building in the same way as a map, but showing the arrangement at a particular level of a building.

Floor plan view is defined as a vertical orthographic projection of an object on to a horizontal plane cutting through the building. This shows the walls, windows, door and other features such as stairs, fittings and even furniture too.

Cross Section

Geometrically, a cross section is a horizontal orthographic projection of a building on to a vertical plane cutting through the building. Cross section is vertical cut section of any building which shows the details of dimension, thickness of any component of a building. It also represents the sill height, lintel height, floor height and other minute details of a structure.

The section plane where the plan is vertically cut is represented in the 2d floor plan by a bold dotted straight line.

Elevation

An elevation drawing is an orthographic projection drawing that shows one side of the house. The purpose of an elevation drawing is to show the finished appearance of a given side of the house and furnish vertical height dimensions. Majorly it is divided into 3 types.

Picture Credit : Google

When prehistoric peoples began to farm, they built settlements. However, some peoples preferred to continue to move about in search of food, following a nomadic lifestyle. Nomads do not need settled homes, but they do need shelter from the weather, so many of them carry tents made of skins or woven fabric. Tents are light to carry and can be put up very quickly.

In the modern world, we live in sedentary, or non-mobile, societies. That's what we're used to. However, that lifestyle didn't become widely available until the late Stone Age, a period called the Neolithic (literally meaning New Stone Age), as the Ice Age ended around 10,000 BCE. For the roughly 190,000 years of human existence prior to that, within the period called the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), all human societies were nomadic. This means that they did not have permanent addresses or build permanent structures. They traveled throughout the year, moving with their food supplies and available resources.

Nomadism seems like a pretty simple concept, but we've seen throughout history that there are actually a number of different ways to be nomadic. Some nomadic people seem to have relied heavily on large herds of animals like bison, following the herds wherever they roamed and hunting for survival. Others, including many around the Mediterranean Sea, seem to have moved around based, at least in part, on when various plant resources became available, traveling throughout the region as various natural fruits, seeds, and grains came into season.

Other societies of this time may have been only semi-nomadic, which means they maintained a semi-permanent residence for part of the year (generally one season or less). There seems to have been two factors which made this possible. For one, semi-nomadic groups had to have a place that could provide steady resources for an extended period of time. Perhaps the best example of this is a large river where fish migrate during a particular time of year. Tribes could camp by the river and harvest fish for weeks, preserving the meat so that it would last.

The second factor is harsh climatic conditions. It's important to remember that Paleolithic people were living in the Ice Age. Winters were rough, and it seems likely that many of the cave dwellings we've found were occupied for weeks or months at a time. People used the caves for shelter during rough winter months, during which many herds of animals weren’t moving around too much, and waited until spring to start roaming again.

Nomadic people did not farm for food but acquired it as they traveled. We call this a hunter-gatherer economy, which is exactly what the name implies. They hunted for food and gathered other resources as they became available. Both of these required an interesting amount of balance. Nomadic people lived on the move and didn't have permanent storage facilities (like attics or pantries). Because of this, they couldn't simply gather all the food and resources they found. They could only gather that which they could carry.

Picture Credit : Google

Although many traditional building styles are still in use, the appearance of buildings and the way in which they are built changes as outside influences are brought to bear on their architects and builders. Naturally, buildings are based on shapes that give the strongest structures: rectangles, cylinders, triangles and domes. In the search for new forms, architects have often looked back to the past. In the fourteenth century in Italy, for example, designers rediscovered the architecture of ancient Rome and neo-classical (“new” classical) buildings in the subsequent centuries were built all over the world, especially where a building was meant to embody power, learning and dignity. New buildings today still combine recent ideas with traditional motifs.

Modernism could be described as one of the most optimistic styles in architectural history, drawing from notions of utopia, innovation, and the reimagination of how humans would live, work, and interact. As we reflected in our AD Essentials Guide to Modernism, the philosophy of Modernism still dominates much of architectural discourse today, even if the world that gave rise to Modernism has changed utterly.

As we say goodbye to 2019, a year that saw the centenary of the Bauhaus, we have collated a list of key architectural styles that defined Modernism in architecture. This tool for understanding the development of 20th-century design is complete with examples of each style, showcasing the practice of Modernism that lay behind the theory.

The Modern Era is broadly defined in the United States as the period from 1930 through the 1970s. Buildings or sites of the period often looked to the future without overt references to historical precedent; expressed functional, technical or spatial properties; and was conscious of being modern, expressing the principles of modern design. The architecture produced during this period took on many forms and represented a range of complex ideology. The terms included here represent a means of categorizing these disparate resources based on design similarities, but are in no way intended to limit or fully define them.

Picture Credit : Google

The Egyptians were building massive pyramids almost 5000 years ago. We are still not sure how they achieved this without the mechanical lifting and cutting equipment that we have today, but the answer must be that they used huge numbers of slaves to shape and haul the enormous stones with which they built. Recently, scientists have calculated that as many as 10,000 slaves were probably needed to work on these structures.

The first, and largest, pyramid at Giza was built by the pharoh Khufu (reign started around 2551 B.C.). His pyramid, which today stands 455 feet (138 meters) tall, is known as the "Great Pyramid" and was considered to be a wonder of the world by ancient writers.

The pyramid of Khafre (reign started around 2520 B.C.) was only slightly smaller than Khufu's but stood on higher ground. Many scholars believe that the Sphinx monument, which lies near Khafre's pyramid, was built by Khafre, and that the face of the Sphinx was modeled after him. The third pharaoh to build a pyramid at Giza was Menkaure (reign started around 2490 B.C.), who opted for a smaller pyramid that stood 215 feet (65 m) high.

Over the past two decades, researchers have made a number of discoveries related to the pyramids, including a town built near the pyramid of Menkaure, a study showing how water can make blocks easier to move and a papyrus found by the Red Sea. These have allowed researchers to gain a better understanding of how the Giza pyramids were built. The new finds add to older knowledge gained over the last two centuries.

The techniques used to build the Giza pyramids were developed over a period of centuries, with all of the problems and setbacks that any modern-day scientist or engineer would face.

Pyramids originated from simple rectangular “mastaba” tombs that were being constructed in Egypt over 5,000 years ago, according to finds made by archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie. A major advance occurred during the reign of the pharaoh Djoser (reign started around 2630 B.C). His mastaba tomb at Saqqara started off as a simple rectangular tomb before being developed into a six-layered atep pyramind with underground tunnels and chambers.

Another leap in pyramid-building techniques came during the reign of the pharaoh Snefru (reign started around 2575 B.C.) who built at least three pyramids. Rather than constructing step pyramids, Snefru's architects developed methods to design smooth-faced, true pyramids.

It appears that Snefru's architects ran into trouble. One of the pyramids he constructed at the site of Dahshur is known today as the “bent pyramid” because the angle of the pyramid changes partway up, giving the structure a bent appearance. Scholars generally regard the bent angle as being the result of a design flaw.

Picture Credit : Google

For thousands of years, people have been building homes, temples and monuments, but until only a few centuries ago, they had no proper plans to follow before building began. They based their work on tried and tested methods, estimating how strongly walls had to be built to support the floors above and the roof. Of course, many buildings collapsed or subsided, but others are still standing to this day, a tribute to the skill of builders in times past.

The last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, the great pyramids of Giza are perhaps the most famous and discussed structures in history. These massive monuments were unsurpassed in height for thousands of years after their construction and continue to amaze and enthrall us with their overwhelming mass and seemingly impossible perfection. Their exacting orientation and mind-boggling construction has elicited many theories about their origins, including unsupported suggestions that they had extra-terrestrial impetus. However, by examining the several hundred years prior to their emergence on the Giza plateau, it becomes clear that these incredible structures were the result of many experiments, some more successful than others, and represent an apogee in the development of the royal mortuary complex.

Picture Credit : Google

The earliest human homes that we know of are caves. We know that they were inhabited because paintings have been found on the walls, but these homes were not built - they were made by nature, not human beings. The earliest mud and wooden shelters and huts have not survived intact, but from about 2700BC people began to build some of the huge stone structures that have survived to this day. Apart from the Egyptian pyramids, one of the earliest was the circle of stones known as Stonehenge, in England. It is not known exactly what this was for, but it probably had religious significance. Throughout history, religion has spurred builders to create many of the largest and most impressive buildings ever seen.

Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain in England, is one of the most recognizable monuments of the Neolithic world and one of the most popular, with over one million visitors a year. People come to see Stonehenge because it is so impossibly big and so impossibly old; some are searching for a connection with a prehistoric past; some come to witness the workings of a massive astronomical observatory. The people living in the fourth millennium BC who began work on Stonehenge were contemporary with the first dynasties of Ancient Egypt, and their efforts predate the building of the Pyramids. What they created has endured millennia and still intrigues us today.

In fact, what we see today is the result of at least three phases of construction, although there is still a lot of controversy among archaeologists about exactly how and when these phases occurred. It is generally agreed that the first phase of construction at Stonehenge occurred around 3100 BCE, when a great circular ditch about six feet deep was dug with a bank of dirt within it about 360 feet in diameter, with a large entrance to the northeast and a smaller one to the south. This circular ditch and bank together is called a henge.  Within the henge were dug 56 pits, each slightly more than three feet in diameter, called Aubrey holes, after John Aubrey, the 17th century English archaeologist who first found them. These holes, it is thought, were either originally filled with upright bluestones or upright wooden beams. If it was bluestones which filled the Aubrey holes, it involved quite a bit of effort as each weighed between 2 and 4 tons and were mined from the Preseli Hills, about 250 miles away in Wales.

Picture Credit : Google

Water, left to its own devices, always flows from its highest point to its lowest, until the two points are on the same level. If a canal sloped as it climbed a hill, its water would simply flow to the bottom. One solution is to bore a tunnel through the hill, so that the canal can continue on a level course, but sometimes this is too costly or geologically impossible. Building locks can solve this problem.

Canals are waterways channels, or artificial waterways, for water conveyance, or to service water transport vehicles. They may also help with irrigation. It can be thought of as an artificial version of a river.

In most cases, the engineered works will have a series of dams and locks that create reservoirs of low speed current flow. These reservoirs are referred to as slack water levels, often just called levels.

A canal is also known as a navigation when it parallels a river and shares part of its waters and drainage basin, and leverages its resources by building dams and locks to increase and lengthen its stretches of slack water levels while staying in its valley. In contrast, a canal cuts across drainage divide atop a ridge, generally requiring an external water source above the highest elevation.

Many canals have been built at elevations towering over valleys and other water ways crossing far below. Canals with sources of water at a higher level can deliver water to a destination such as a city where water is needed. The Roman Empire’s aqueducts were such water supply canals.

Caen Hill Locks are a flight of 29 locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal, between Rowde and Devizes in Wiltshire, England. The 29 locks have a rise of 237 feet in 2 miles (72 m in 3.2 km) or a 1 in 44 Gradient. The locks come in three groups: the lower seven locks, Foxhangers Wharf Lock to Foxhangers Bridge Lock, are spread over 3?4 mile (1.2 km); the next sixteen locks form a steep flight in a straight line up the hillside and are designated as a scheduled monument. Because of the steepness of the terrain, the pounds between these locks are very short. As a result, fifteen of them have unusually large sideways-extended pounds, to store the water needed to operate them. A final six locks take the canal into Devizes. The locks take 5–6 hours to traverse in a boat.

A lock consists of two gates across the canal, with mechanisms for opening them on the towpath.

To climb to a higher level of the canal, a boat enters the first lock gate, which is closed behind it.

Paddles in the second lock gate are opened so that water can flow in, gradually raising the level of water in the lock.

When the water ahead is level with that in the lock, the gates are opened and the boat can move on.

Picture Credit : Google

For thousands of years, people have transported heavy goods along waterways. The first canals were probably built to join existing navigable rivers. In the fifteenth century, the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan had a sophisticated series of canals, providing transport for goods and people. Venice, in Italy, although a smaller city, was also built on a system of canals rather than roads. However, the golden age of canal-building probably came with the Industrial Revolution, when there was an enormous need for cheap and easy ways to carry the goods made in factories to the nearest port. Canal boats, powered at first by a horse on the towpath and later by coal-fired steam engines, could carry enormous loads much more conveniently than horse drawn carts on bumpy roads.

The British canal system of water transport played a vital role in the United Kingdom’s Industrial Revolution at a time when roads were only just emerging from the medieval mud and long trains of packhorses were the only means of "mass" transit by road of raw materials and finished products. The UK was the first country to develop a nationwide canal network.

The canal system dates to Roman Britain, but was largely used for irrigation or to Link Rivers. The navigable water network in the British Isles grew as the demand for industrial transport increased. It grew rapidly at first, and became an almost completely connected network covering the south, Midlands, and parts of the North of England and Wales. There were canals in Scotland, but they were not connected to the English canals or, generally, to each other (the main exception being the Monkland Canal, the Union Canal and the Forth and Clyde Canal which connected the River Clyde and Glasgow to the River Forth and Edinburgh). As building techniques improved, older canals were improved by straightening, Embankments, cuttings, tunnels, aqueducts, inclined planes, and boat lifts, which together snipped many miles and locks, and therefore hours and cost, from journeys. However, there was often fierce opposition to the building.

Picture Credit : Google

The earliest bridges were probably tree trunks across streams or flat slabs of rock. Gradually, people learned to span wider rivers and ravines by supporting the bridge in the middle. Since then, engineers have devised ways of spanning very wide distances.

There are many different types of bridges although typically their structures can be traced back to one of the seven main types. It is the way in which the vertical/horizontal stresses are managed which dictates the structure of different bridges. In some cases the deck area will be the load-bearing element while in others it will be the towers. There are also designs that transmit tension through bridge cables which allow a degree of flexibility for different terrains.

Beam Bridge

A beam bridge is one of the simplest types of bridge. A perfect example being a basic log bridge – something you may see while out on a country walk. The deck area traditionally consists of wood plank or stone slabs (often referred to as a clapper bridge). These are supported either side by two beams running between abutments/piers. Very often you will find other beams, positioned in between the main beams, offering additional support and stability. The area over which people or vehicles travel will be a simple decking positioned vertically across the underlying beams. This is often referred to as a “simply supported” structure. There is no transfer of stress which you see in arch structures and other types of bridges.

Truss Bridge

The truss bridge has been around for literally centuries and is a load-bearing structure which incorporates a truss in a highly efficient yet very simple design. You will notice an array of different variations of the simple truss bridge but they all incorporate triangular sections. The role of these triangular elements is important because they effectively absorb tension and compression to create a stressed structure able to accommodate dynamic loads. This mixture of tension and compression ensures the structure of the bridge is maintained and the decking area remains uncompromised even in relatively strong winds.

Cantilever Bridge

When the first cantilever bridge was designed it was seen as a major engineering breakthrough. The bridge works by using cantilevers which may be simple beams or trusses. They are made from pre-stressed concrete or structural steel when used to accommodate traffic. When you consider that the horizontal beams making up the cantilever arm are only supported from one side it does begin to sound a little dangerous. However, the two cantilever arms are connected by what is known as the “suspended span” which is effectively a centrepiece which has no direct support underneath. The bridge load is supported through diagonal bracing with horizontal beams as opposed to typical vertical bracing. Extremely safe and very secure, the design of cantilever bridges is one which still lives on today.

Suspension Bridges

The structure of a stereotypical suspension bridge looks very simple but the design is extremely effective. The deck of the suspension bridge is the load-bearing element of the structure. This is held in place by vertical suspenders which support the cables. The suspension cables extend out beyond each side of the bridge and are anchored firmly into the ground. It will depend upon the size of the bridge but a number of towers will be installed to hold up the suspension cables. Any load applied to the bridge is transformed into tension across the suspension cables which are the integral part of the structure. As there is some “give” in the suspension cables this can translate into slight, but measured, bridge movement in difficult weather conditions.

Cable stayed bridge

A cable stayed bridge is dependent upon towers/pylons which are the load-bearing element of the structure. Cables are connected from the pylons to the deck below. Either directly from the top of the tower or at different points of the column. When connected at different points of the column this creates a fan like pattern. This is the feature many people associate with cable stayed bridges. This type of structure tends to be used for distances greater than those achieved with a cantilever bridge design but less than a suspension bridge. One of the main issues with this type of bridge is that the central connection of the cables can place horizontal pressure on the deck. Therefore, the deck structure needs to be reinforced to withstand these ongoing pressures.

Picture Credit : Google

From the earliest times, humans and animals have created track ways along well-used routes, but it was the Romans who were the first to set about road-building in a systematic manner. The Roman Empire stretched from North Africa to Scotland. In order to govern successfully, the occupying forces needed to be able to reach trouble spots quickly. Roman roads were built so that armies could march rapidly for hundreds of miles.

A top level of paving stones gave a smooth surface for carts and marching armies. Roman roads were made in layers. First the route was cleared of large stones and boulders. Then the bed of the road was levelled with sand. The Romans tried to build straight roads as far as possible. Straight roads were easier to march along and reduced the risk of ambush, as the view was clear in both directions.

Roman road system outstanding transportation network of the ancient Mediterranean world, extending from Britain to the Tigris-Euphrates river system and from the Danube River to Spain and northern Africa. In all, the Romans built 50,000 miles (80,000 km) of hard-surfaced highway, primarily for military reasons.

The first of the great Roman roads, the Via Appia (Appian Way), begun by the censorAppius Claudius Caecus in 312 BCE, originally ran southeast from Rome 162 miles (261 km) to Tarentum (now Taranto) and was later extended to the Adriatic coast at Brundisium (now Brindisi). The Long Branch running through Calabria to the Straits of Messina was known as the Via Popilia. By the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, four other great roads radiated from Rome: the Via Aurelia, extending northwest to Genua (Genoa); the Via Flaminia, running north to the Adriatic, where it joined the Via Aemilia, crossed the Rubicon, and led northwest; the Via Valeria, east across the peninsula by way of Lake Fucinus (Conca del Fucino); and the Via Latina, running southeast and joining the Via Appia near Capua. Their numerous feeder roads extending far into the Roman provinces led to the proverb “All roads lead to Rome.”

The Roman roads were notable for their straightness, solid foundations, cambered surfaces facilitating drainage, and use of concrete made from pozzolana (volcanic ash) and lime. Though adapting their technique to materials locally available, the Roman engineers followed basically the same principles in building abroad as they had in Italy. In 145 BCE they began the Via Egnatia, an extension of the Via Appia beyond the Adriatic into Greece and Asia Minor, where it joined the ancient Persian Royal Road.

In northern Africa the Romans followed up their conquest of Carthage by building a road system that spanned the south shore of the Mediterranean. In Gaul they developed a system centred on Lyon, whence main roads extended to the Rhine, Bordeaux, and the English Channel. In Britain the purely strategic roads following the conquest were supplemented by a network radiating from London. In Spain, on the contrary, the topography of the country dictated a system of main roads around the periphery of the peninsula, with secondary roads developed into the central plateaus.

The Roman road system made possible Roman conquest and administration and later provided highways for the great migrations into the empire and a means for the diffusion of Christianity. Despite deterioration from neglect, it continued to serve Europe throughout the Middle Ages, and many fragments of the system survive today.

Picture Credit : Google