The Role of the Field Architect in the Digital Age: Integrating Human and Electronic Recording at the Villa Arianna in Roman Stabiae

ABSTRACT

Digital recording technologies such as lidar and photogrammetry bring higher efficiency to archaeological recording, as well as the allure of automation. How do the promises of the digital age impact the role and methods of field architects, members of an archaeological team responsible for illustrating architectural finds? Between 2011 and 2022, University of Maryland field architects grappled with this question while recording the frescoed rooms of the Villa Arianna in Roman Stabiae. Like other Roman houses preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in a.d. 79, the villa contains many building phases, destruction deposits, and large spaces adorned with detailed frescoes. To accurately capture this diversity, the field team integrated several digital-assisted recording techniques with traditional manual approaches. While electronic technologies aided the architects in measuring the villa at multiple scales, we found that they could not replace the field architect’s capacity for granular first-hand observation, historical learning, and interpretation of archaeological signatures.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Field architect
• digital
• archaeological illustration
• fresco
• Stabiae
• Villa Arianna
• Roman

Geolocation Information

The plan (see Figure 2) showing the Villa Arianna in Castellammare di Stabia, Italy, uses geo-referenced benchmarks from Vittorio Fontanella’s survey between April and June 2010, with elevation levels obtained by Thomas Howe in June 2010. BM 4–6 are the benchmarks used for the “First Complex” of the Villa Arianna, the focus of this study. The benchmarks are registered to the following Gauss-Boaga national grid coordinates: BM 4: X Easting 2477059.9339, Y Northing 4505546.6179, Z Elevation masl 48.501; BM 5: X Easting 2477080.5349, Y Northing 4505554.8649, Z Elevation masl 49.616; BM 6: X Easting 2477122.8300, Y Northing 4505589.8595, Z Elevation masl 49.692.

Acknowledgments

This research has been generously funded by the Wilhelmina F. Jashemski and Stanley A. Jashemski Research Grant Program and was carried out with the support of the Restoring Ancient Stabiae Foundation and the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Pompei, Ercolano e Stabia. A great debt of gratitude is due to Robert Lindley Vann, originally the PI of the archaeological work-study program at the Villa Arianna in Stabiae. Thanks are also due to the many UMD students and alumni who made the architectural drawings and to the staff of the Vesuvian Inn.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph C. Williams

Joseph C. Williams (Ph.D. 2017, Duke University) is an architectural historian and Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Maryland. His research uncovers the nature of builders’ knowledge before modernity, with a focus on ancient and medieval southern Italy and its Mediterranean orbit. In particular, he applies the methods of building archaeology to examine construction techniques and their role in premodern design process. Williams developed these methods during his Ph.D. in architectural history at Duke, as well as a Kress fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, resulting in his 2020 book Architecture of Disjuncture, which focused on cathedral building in medieval Apulia. He has also directed the UMD archaeological work-study program at the Villa Arianna in Roman Stabiae, documented Byzantine-Norman churches in Sicily with the support of a Dumbarton Oaks Project Grant, and founded the new MAPP Architectural Representation Lab (MARL) at UMD.

Thomas Howe

Thomas Noble Howe (Ph.D. 1985, Harvard University), is an architect, archaeologist, architectural historian, and Professor of Architecture at Southwestern University. He holds a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, as well as a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Harvard, where he focused on Greek and Roman Architecture. Howe has 40 years’ experience in field archaeology and is currently Director of Excavations of the Villa Arianna in Roman Stabiae. His publications include numerous archaeological studies of ancient buildings, such as the 1977 book The Romano-British Villa at Castle Copse, Great Bedwyn, with E. Hostetter, as well as the 2014 translation of Vitruvius’s Ten Books of Architecture, with Ingrid D. Rowland. Howe takes a particular interest in methods of architectural recording at archaeological sites and how precision-recording is necessary for a full appreciation of ancient design practice.

Adan Ramos

Adan Ramos (M.Arch 2019, University of Maryland) is currently a Lecturer teaching design studio. He has served as a Research and Teaching Assistant for the UMD archaeological work-study program at the Villa Arianna in Roman Stabiae and co-organized the comprehensive survey of the frescoed walls of the “first complex.” Ramos is interested in the critical use of digital technologies for architectural survey.

Gabriel Maslen

Gabriel Maslen (B.S.Arch 2015, University of Maryland) studies Architecture and Urban Design at the Politecnico di Milan. He has served as a Research and Teaching Assistant for the UMD archaeological work-study program at the Villa Arianna in Roman Stabiae and co-organized the comprehensive survey of the frescoed walls of the “first complex.” He takes a special interest in methods of architectural draftsmanship and the pedagogy thereof.