We can’t regard the ruins of Pom­peii, how­ev­er unusu­al­ly well-pre­served they are, with­out try­ing to imag­ine what the place looked like before 79 AD. It was in that year, of course, that Mount Vesu­vius erupt­ed, entomb­ing the ancient Roman city in ash and pumice. The exhumed Pom­peii has taught mod­ern human­i­ty a great deal about first-cen­tu­ry urban plan­ning as prac­ticed by the Roman Empire. But it’s one thing to walk the paths Pom­pei­ians walked, and quite anoth­er to see the built envi­ron­ment that they must have seen. The lat­ter expe­ri­ence is avail­able in the eigh­teen-minute video above, which uses com­put­er graph­ics to cre­ate a tour of a rebuilt Pom­peii.

This pro­duc­tion, in fact, pro­vides views of Pom­peii that Pom­pei­ians them­selves could nev­er have seen, includ­ing drone-like flights along its streets and around its famous struc­tures like the Tem­ple of Apol­lo, the Basil­i­ca, and the Forum. But even more than its grand pub­lic build­ings, the city’s pri­vate dwellings — many of them grand in their own way — have influ­enced the way we’ve built in recent cen­turies.

“With their unmis­tak­able style, they have inspired archi­tects of all times,” says the video’s nar­ra­tor. Even as urban­iza­tion reduced the size of Pom­pei­ian hous­es, they gained “rich­ness in dec­o­ra­tions,” reflect­ing the sen­si­bil­i­ty of the local cul­ture.

“Tem­ples, basil­i­cas, spas, hous­es, and a refined, high-lev­el lifestyle make Pom­peii one of the most famous cities of the Roman Empire of the first cen­tu­ry,” says the nar­ra­tor. “All of this, how­ev­er, is about to end abrupt­ly.” We all know what hap­pened next, but the extent of the destruc­tion wrought by Mount Vesu­vius takes a vivid form in the video just above, which com­pares its own CGI recon­struc­tions of these same build­ings to the ruins of today. In its time, Pom­pei­i’s refine­ment made it a well-known city, and some­thing of a show­case of Roman civ­i­liza­tion. But near­ly two mil­len­nia after its destruc­tion, it has become much more famous as a sym­bol of civ­i­liza­tion itself: its sur­pris­ing con­ti­nu­ity, but also its decep­tive fragili­ty.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Destruc­tion of Pom­peii by Mount Vesu­vius, Re-Cre­at­ed with Com­put­er Ani­ma­tion (79 AD)

How the Sur­vivors of Pom­peii Escaped Mount Vesu­vius’ Dead­ly Erup­tion: A TED-Ed Ani­ma­tion Tells the Sto­ry

See the Expan­sive Ruins of Pom­peii Like You’ve Nev­er Seen Them Before: Through the Eyes of a Drone

High-Res­o­lu­tion Walk­ing Tours of Italy’s Most His­toric Places: The Colos­se­um, Pom­peii, St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca & More

Archae­ol­o­gists Dis­cov­er an Ancient Roman Snack Bar in the Ruins of Pom­peii

How Ancient Scrolls, Charred by the Erup­tion of Mount Vesu­vius in 79 AD, Are Now Being Read by Par­ti­cle Accel­er­a­tors, 3D Mod­el­ing & Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Ancient Greeks did not live among ruins. This is, of course, an obvi­ous truth, but one we run the risk of for­get­ting if we watch too many his­tor­i­cal fan­tasies set in their time and place as pop­u­lar­ly imag­ined. That West­ern civ­i­liza­tion as we know it today came to know Ancient Greece through the rav­aged built envi­ron­ments left behind has col­ored its mod­ern-day per­cep­tion — or, rather drained it of col­or. In recent years, a big deal has been made about the find­ing that Ancient Greek stat­ues weren’t orig­i­nal­ly pure white, but paint­ed in bright hues that fad­ed away over the cen­turies. What does that imply for the rest of the place?

We don’t have a time machine in which to trav­el back to Ancient Greece and have a look around. We do, how­ev­er, have the dig­i­tal recon­struc­tions of artist Ádám Németh. “My archae­o­log­i­cal ren­der­ings are accu­rate to the time peri­od, due to exten­sive research on ref­er­ences and reviews of sources found online, in libraries and in muse­ums, and also ongo­ing dis­cus­sions with archae­ol­o­gists,” he writes.

“My main goal, through recon­struc­tions, is to make his­to­ry inter­est­ing and acces­si­ble for every­body.” Even those more or less igno­rant of the ancient world can take a glance at his images of an intact and col­or­ful Tem­ple of Hadri­an, Curetes Street, and Foun­tain of Tra­jan.

All of these sites were locat­ed in the Ancient Greek city of Eph­esus, now a part of Turkey. Though it does­n’t draw quite the num­bers of, say, Hagia Sophia, Eph­esus stands nev­er­the­less as a pil­lar of Turk­ish tourism. Indeed, you can go there and exam­ine its actu­al pil­lars, none of which have come through the ages stand­ing any­thing like as might­i­ly Németh depicts them. Com­par­isons post­ed by Mari­na Ama­r­al on Twit­ter put for­mer glo­ry along­side cur­rent ruin, though even the Tem­ple of Hadri­an, Curetes Street, and the Foun­tain of Tra­jan as they are today have been pieced togeth­er into a some­what more com­plete state than that in which they were redis­cov­ered. Even real antiq­ui­ty, in oth­er words, is to some degree a recon­struc­tion. See more of Németh’s recon­struc­tions here.

via Mari­na Ama­r­al

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Explore Ancient Athens 3D, a Dig­i­tal Recon­struc­tion of the Greek City-State at the Height of Its Influ­ence

How Ancient Greek Stat­ues Real­ly Looked: Research Reveals Their Bold, Bright Col­ors and Pat­terns

Watch an Accu­rate Recon­struc­tion of the World’s Old­est Com­put­er, the 2,200 Year-Old Antikythera Mech­a­nism, from Start to Fin­ish

Watch Art on Ancient Greek Vas­es Come to Life with 21st Cen­tu­ry Ani­ma­tion

What Did Ancient Greek Music Sound Like?: Lis­ten to a Recon­struc­tion That’s ‘100% Accu­rate’

Watch Ancient Ruins Get Restored to their Glo­ri­ous Orig­i­nal State with Ani­mat­ed GIFs: The Tem­ple of Jupiter, Lux­or Tem­ple & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Le Cor­busier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ray Brad­bury: they and oth­er 20th-cen­tu­ry nota­bles all gave seri­ous thought to the ide­al city, what it would include and what it would exclude. To that extent we could describe them, in 21st-cen­tu­ry par­lance, as urban­ists. But the roots of the dis­ci­pline — or area of research, or pro­fes­sion, or obses­sion — we call urban­ism run all the way back to the 15th cen­tu­ry. At that time, ear­ly in the Euro­pean Renais­sance, thinkers were recon­sid­er­ing a host of con­di­tions tak­en for grant­ed in the medieval peri­od, from man’s place in the uni­verse (and indeed the uni­verse itself) to the dis­pos­al of his garbage. Few of these fig­ures thought as far ahead, or across as many fields as Leonar­do da Vin­ci.

In addi­tion to his accom­plish­ments in art, sci­ence, engi­neer­ing, and archi­tec­ture, the quin­tes­sen­tial “Renais­sance man” also tried his hand at urban­ism. More specif­i­cal­ly, he includ­ed in his note­books designs for what he saw as an ide­al city. “Leonar­do was 30 when he moved to Milan in around 1482,” writes Engi­neer­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy’s Hilary Clarke.

“The city he found was a crowd­ed medieval war­ren of build­ings, with no san­i­ta­tion. Soon after the young painter had arrived, it was hit by an out­break of the bubon­ic plague that killed 50,000 peo­ple — more than a third of the city’s pop­u­la­tion at the time.” This could well have prompt­ed him to draw up his plan, which dates between 1487 and 1490, for a clean­er and more effi­cient urban envi­ron­ment.

While it would­n’t have been par­tic­u­lar­ly hard to envi­sion a less dirty and dis­or­dered set­ting than the late medieval Euro­pean city, Leonar­do, true to form, per­formed a thor­ough­go­ing act of reimag­i­na­tion. “Draw­ing on the knowl­edge he had gained from study­ing Milan’s canals, Leonar­do want­ed to use water to con­nect the city like a cir­cu­la­to­ry sys­tem,” writes Clarke, who adds that Leonar­do was also study­ing human anato­my at the time. “His ide­al town-plan­ning prin­ci­ple was to have a mul­ti-tiered city, which also includ­ed an under­ground water­way to flush away efflu­ent.” The top tier would have all the hous­es, squares and oth­er pub­lic build­ings; “the bot­tom tier was for the poor, goods and traf­fic — hors­es and carts — and ran on the same lev­el as the canals and basins, so wag­ons could be eas­i­ly offloaded.”

Though its ambi­tion would have seemed fan­tas­ti­cal in the 15th cen­tu­ry, Leonar­do’s city plan every­where mar­shals his con­sid­er­able engi­neer­ing knowl­edge to address prac­ti­cal prob­lems. He had a real loca­tion in mind — along the Tici­no Riv­er, which runs through mod­ern-day Italy and Switzer­land — and planned details right down to the spi­ral stair­cas­es in every build­ing. He insist­ed on spi­rals, Clarke notes, “because they lacked cor­ners, mak­ing it hard­er for men to uri­nate,” but they also add an ele­gance to his vision of the ver­ti­cal city, a notion that strikes us as obvi­ous today but was unknown then. Of course, Leonar­do was a man ahead of his time, and the 3D-ren­dered and phys­i­cal mod­els of his ide­al city in these videos from the Ide­al Spaces Work­ing Group and Italy’s Museo Nazionale del­la Scien­za e del­la Tec­nolo­gia Leonar­do da Vin­ci make one won­der if his plan would­n’t look both allur­ing and impos­si­bly rad­i­cal to urban­ists even today.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Leonar­do da Vin­ci Drew an Accu­rate Satel­lite Map of an Ital­ian City (1502)

The Medieval City Plan Gen­er­a­tor: A Fun Way to Cre­ate Your Own Imag­i­nary Medieval Cities

Frank Lloyd Wright Designs an Urban Utopia: See His Hand-Drawn Sketch­es of Broad­acre City (1932)

Denmark’s Utopi­an Gar­den City Built Entire­ly in Cir­cles: See Astound­ing Aer­i­al Views of Brønd­by Have­by

The Utopi­an, Social­ist Designs of Sovi­et Cities

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

With The Hunch­back of Notre-Dame, Vic­tor Hugo intend­ed less to tell a sto­ry than to mount a defense of Goth­ic archi­tec­ture, which in the ear­ly 19th cen­tu­ry was being demol­ished in cities all across France. The book’s orig­i­nal pur­pose is more clear­ly reflect­ed by its orig­i­nal title, Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482, and the tit­u­lar medieval cathe­dral’s impor­tance to the cap­i­tal for near­ly two cen­turies now owes a great deal to the nov­el­ist’s advo­ca­cy. Hugo would no doubt be pleased by the effort that has gone into pre­serv­ing Notre-Dame into the 21st cen­tu­ry, share in the feel­ings of dev­as­ta­tion that fol­lowed the fire of April 2019, and admire the spir­it that moti­vat­ed com­mence­ment of the restora­tion work imme­di­ate­ly there­after.

Or rather, the com­mence­ment of the sta­bi­liza­tion work imme­di­ate­ly there­after: giv­en the extent of the dam­age, the then-674-year-old struc­ture had first to be made safe to restore. The AFP News Agency video above explains and visu­al­izes that process, a com­plex and dif­fi­cult one in itself. The first pri­or­i­ty was to pro­tect the exposed areas of the cathe­dral from the ele­ments and shore up their fly­ing but­tress­es (a sig­na­ture struc­tur­al ele­ment of Goth­ic archi­tec­ture) to pre­vent col­lapse.

Melt­ed togeth­er by the fire, sec­tions of scaf­fold­ing that had been set up for pre­vi­ous restora­tion work also posed con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ties to remove with­out harm­ing the build­ing. As for the rub­ble heaped inside, sort­ing through it required con­duct­ing a 3D scan, then bring­ing in remote-con­trolled robots and a team of archae­ol­o­gists.

“I saw the dis­as­ter unfold­ing before me,” says one such archae­ol­o­gist, Olivi­er Puaux, in the Radio France Inter­na­tionale video just above. “It was so sad that I went home before the spire fell.” But just a month lat­er he returned to work on the ambi­tious restora­tion project, sev­er­al of whose work­ers appear to share their expe­ri­ence with its chal­lenges, dan­gers, and per­haps unex­pect­ed learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. Remov­ing and sort­ing through all the fall­en wood, stone, and oth­er mate­ri­als — some of which came through the blaze in re-usable con­di­tion — has pro­vid­ed new insights into the cathe­dral’s con­struc­tion. Even its very nails, says Puaux, turn out on close inspec­tion to be “very large, very well forged.” As dis­tressed as Vic­tor Hugo may have felt about Notre-Dame’s future, its orig­i­nal builders were sure­ly con­fi­dent that they were cre­at­ing a sur­vivor.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Dig­i­tal Scans of Notre Dame Can Help Archi­tects Rebuild the Burned Cathe­dral

A Vir­tu­al Time-Lapse Recre­ation of the Build­ing of Notre Dame (1160)

Paris in Beau­ti­ful Col­or Images from 1890: The Eif­fel Tow­er, Notre Dame, The Pan­théon, and More (1890)

Notre Dame Cap­tured in an Ear­ly Pho­to­graph, 1838

Take an Aer­i­al Tour of Medieval Paris

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.