The Roman Circus of the City of Tarragona. 10 Years of Collaboration Between Architects and Archaeologists

Abstract

We are not the first to deal with the Roman circus of Tarragona, perhaps one of the most drawn Roman buildings of the Iberian Peninsula, although the insistence in its documentation has not produced a complete and convincing planimetry. The complicated articulation of the circus with the historical centre of the city makes it difficult to elaborate a reliable synthesis of its architectural configuration. But, taking advantage of the potential in the collaboration between the Technical School of Architecture (ETSA) of the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) and the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC), it is also an opportunity to combine the different skills of architects and archaeologists for the interpretation of historical architecture. Aware of the deficiencies in the graphic documentation of the Roman circus of Tarragona, it was decided to choose this monument as an area of methodological test, where the students of the subjects mentioned above have developed their practical works. The final result is a heterogeneous set of graphic representations of the same monument, product of the different visions of its authors and of the evolution of the techniques used in their elaboration. In the present communication we show a synthesis of the works carried out, thanks to which a more intense approach to the reality of the circus is achieved, understanding that the richness of the architectural ensemble comes from both the Roman remains and their overlap with the medieval and contemporary urban form of the historic centre of Tarragona.