Museu d’Història de la Ciutat

Working in the Field – Museu d’Història de la Ciutat

Take your Camera - This assignment is about finding similarities or roots in Catalan Culture related to Antich Roman Influence. Don’t forget this is a work to be included as one of your journal entries.

1. Take five pictures of Roman Monumental influence and its engineering capacity in Barcelona: Walls, Towers, sewer system, public baths, streets. Write your comments on comparisons with today Catalan buildings.

The Barri Gotic area of Barcelona is beautiful and unique in its Roman influence.  The streets are quite narrow and all the buildings are made out of stone.  The Roman engineering is remarkable.  The notion of a sewer system, public baths, walls and towers represented quite advanced engineering for the time.  The Barri Gotic represents a fundamental difference from today’s “average” Catalan building.  An average building tends to have a colorful façade with apartments with many windows above the storefront standing at street level. The streets are less narrow and did not tend to open up into public squares. The Roman buildings tend to be all stone.  Alleyways in the Barri Gotic area are much narrower than those of the normal Catalan street and many streets lead to a public square.

2. Find 3 images of Roman Religious artifacts. Religious life: From Polytheism to Monotheism. How can you explain the change and its cultural meaning.

The change from Polytheism to Monotheism was very important.  It was the transition from the Roman idea of worship of many gods, representing many different values and objects, such as Bacchus, god of wine and Diana, the goddess of the hunt, to one all-encompassing god.  This was a big cultural shift and the change brought about many challenges in the faith. The emphasis on wine in religious ceremonies is partially associated with the paganism of the Romans. Christianity took over as the main monotheistic religion and has been like that ever since. 

3. Take five pictures on construction similarities and find some Catalan buildings with roman Catalan decorative arts today. Architecture: houses in roman times and today (Domus Romana). Write a paragraph on its similarities. Can we find similarities too with American architecture? Why?

Column’s represented Roman art and architecture.  Houses tend to center around a central open-air square where people can relax and enjoy the sunlight.  While walking around the Barri Gothic region of Barcelona I found that the Roman influence is large.  Many times walking through the halls of a building you would stumble out to a central square that opened up to the sky.  The Domus Romana also tended to have separate areas for kitchen and bath, much like the houses of today. It seems like the Roman Domus Romana really set the stage for what a modern house is in Catolonia, at least in the Barri Gotic area. 

The same goes for America.  Although less common, I have seen houses with a central courtyard just like the Domus Romana.  There is clearly some kind of influence that carried over to America. Columns also play a role in the architecture of the federal buildings in Washington DC. 

4. Domestic objects: make a list and compare some of antique Roman habits through artifacts found on the museum. Explain your opinion and tell which one surprised you and why. 

1) Toilets situated right next to each other. 2) Collective bath houses. 3) Explicit artwork (including genitalia).

Looking through the many photos I took, one of the most surprising habits to me was the design and explicitness of the Roman art.  They were not afraid to show and sculpt genitalia. This is surprising to me because we now live in a culture where exposing yourself is highly frowned upon.  However to the Romans, painting genitalia was the best way to express the human body in its purest form.  However just my surprise at the directness and lack of subtly of the art really surprised me and stuck out to me more than anything else in the museum.

5. Images and Gods related to Food and Wine. How did Romans left Wine Culture in Catalunya and how is today? Can you imagine how wine was transferred to Christian Religion? Write about Wine Culture today in Catalunya finding at least 2 examples of Wine brands popular today.

The Romans left a large influence on wine culture in Catalunya.  They established the methods and style of the wine in Catalunia, mostly centered around Tarragona.  They increased the number and variety of grapes that were grown.  However, wine production nearly stopped once Roman rule fell around the 4^th century.  Currently, Catalonia is one of the leading wine producers of Spain.  It had embraced the use of modern technology in the wine and has increased the quality and variety of the offerings.  This incorporation of technology has differentiated Catalan wine from other Spanish wineries, some of which do not include the use of technology in there wine.  

Two large wine brands that are popular today include Penedes and Gramona.  Both wineries sit on vast land and produce their own wine with their own distinctive styles. The wine produced in Catalonia was very important for Christianity. In the 1960s Tarragona started to focus on producing wine for the church.  Production of wine to be used for Communion became commonplace.  Tarragona also started to produce dry white wines.