The hall of arches
A soaring brick space evoking the Roman without imitating it.
Anual — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Draceane — CC BY-SA 4.0 · VIATOR IMPERI from HISPANIA — CC BY-SA 2.0 · VIATOR IMPERI from HISPANIA — CC BY-SA 2.0
**A red-brick building of immense arches designed by Rafael Moneo — reckoned among the most important works of 20th-century Spanish architecture** — directly opposite the theatre. ⚠ **The building is half the visit**: **the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo designed it** and it opened in **1986**, ✅ **with a file of huge brick arches** creating a soaring interior **that evokes Roman architecture without imitating it** — ⚠ **which made it a reference studied in schools of architecture**. ✅ **The collection comes from Mérida itself**: **large mosaics hung on the walls**, **statues of emperors**, **gravestones**, **and everyday objects**. ⚠ **Beneath the building is a crypt** — **a Roman road and tombs uncovered during excavation** ⚠ **over which the museum was built, and which can be visited**. ✅ **And it is air-conditioned** — Mérida's refuge.
A soaring brick space evoking the Roman without imitating it.
Large Roman floors displayed on the walls.
A Roman road and tombs in situ beneath the building.
Calle Jose Ramon Melida, 06800 Merida, Spain
**Because it solved a hard problem: how to build a museum of Roman antiquities without making a fake one.** ⚠ **The problem**: **a museum of Roman remains traditionally faces two bad options**: **an imitative classical building** — ⚠ **with sham columns and pediments, which becomes a caricature and diminishes the originals**; **or a neutral modern box** — ⚠ **with no relation to what it holds**. ✅ **What Moneo did**: **he used Roman material and technique rather than Roman form** — **thin Roman brick**, **the semicircular arch**, **the load-bearing wall**; ⚠ **but at modern dimensions and rhythm, with no ornament and no classical orders**. ✅ **The result**: **a space that feels Roman in substance** — **vast, repetitive, stone-textured, top-lit** — ⚠ **without imitating any particular building**. ✅ **The second intelligence**: **the exhibits hang on the walls between the arches** — **so the building frames the mosaics and sculpture** rather than serving as neutral backdrop. ✅ **The third**: **it is built over the excavated remains themselves** — **and the crypt beneath ties the building to its ground**. ⚠ **It became a reference** — **and Moneo received the Pritzker Prize in 1996**.
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