Diane Favro, the renowned architectural historian and James S. Ackerman Scholar in Residence at the American Academy in Rome, contemplates reconstructing Augustan Rome using digital and other technologies. Augustus allegedly claimed to have transformed Rome from brick to marble. By reverse engineering the ancient capital using procedural modeling technologies, a team from the University of California, Los Angeles is generating multiple, geotemporally based, interactive simulations of the entire cityscape. Experiments within these digital environments test the veracity of Augustus’s boast and provide new insights about its formation.

This lecture is the W. T .C. Walker Lecture in Architectural History at the British School in Rome. The event is organized in collaboration with the British School in Rome.