as a student of architecture at virginia tech traveling in Italy in 1985, I became fascinated with the ancient brick walls that had obviously inspired one of my favorite architects, Louis Kahn. He had visited Rome as a Resident at the American Academy in 1950, and later much of his work was designed around themes of brick arches. The arches in Roman architecture, and particularly the relieving arches inserted into solid walls, captured my imagination. I wondered what secret reasons the Romans had for scattering these elements throughout their buildings. At the time, I was inspired by what I saw as the Roman “honesty” in their use of materials, though I now realize they were probably not remotely interested in this modernist concept. (I have also come to admit that I like most Roman buildings as ruins much better than I would have liked them in their original state.) On my return from the study abroad program, I convinced my architecture professor, Dennis Kilper, to supervise an independent study project on Roman concrete construction, the final product of which would be an illustrated paper. In the end, it was based largely (if not exclusively) on information from Vitruvius and M. E. Blake, and the illustrations were never completed. In the present work, I hope to have remedied the shortcomings of that first project begun two decades ago.

I have been fortunate to work with people who have provided the intellectual grounding to tackle the problems that interest me.