The comparative study of Greek theatres, Roman amphitheaters and today's stadiums

Abstract

Theater buildings are among the oldest gatherings places which were made by Greeks. Throughout their history, based on developments in technology and construction and motivational features, these buildings has been manifested as a developed form of their previous models. This paper attempts to study the similarities and differences in theatre, amphitheater buildings and stadiums in technological era. The research method is analytical and comparative and for data collection, a documentary and library based method is applied. The purpose of this research is to investigate the formation roots of such buildings in Greece, then their technical developments in Ancient Rome and finally their transmutations in today’s stadiums. This research aims at indicating the motivational characteristics of such buildings as well as the reasons for their emergence. For doing so, first the features and motivations for constructing Greek theatre buildings as well as their architectural characteristics as a base in formation of amphitheaters and stadiums has been studied. Although Romans were inheritors of Greece art, due to the development and finding of new materials and also hidden differences in roman society, the features of such buildings was developed which led to the emergence of amphitheaters .the completion and continuation of this process acted as a mediator for formation of today's buildings. Finally today's stadiums which were constructed after The Industrial Revolution is investigated as the continuation of formation process of amphitheaters. It's noteworthy that although, as a motif, these buildings used roman structures and patterns, the emergence of new materials and application of new sciences has made these building quite different from the old ones. In general, here the research subject has been studied from two perspectives: motivation and formation technics by referring to famous and significant examples.

Keywords

• stadium
• amphitheatre
• theater
• rome
• technological age
• greece