ABSTRACT
Our belief in architecture as permanent results from the legacy of Antiquity, and the treatise De architectura by the ancient Roman, Marcus Vitruvius, who established an architectural canon of strength, utility and beauty as key components of any built structure. Of Firmitas or durability, he wrote: ‘Durability will be assured when foundations are carried down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected … .’2 The idea that a solid form cannot be shaken was the goal for architectural form as materials were perfected for construction purposes over the century to ensure durability. Buildings as structures, indeed monumental structures, reveal a tacit understanding that they are permanent. Distinctions of class were easily determined by way of the nature of materials: the more durable, and therefore proud a material –such as stone – the more expensive it was. Thus, the most durable of all forms were naturally churches, palaces and civic structures, whereas private dwellings were less and less durable, given that the materials used in the poorest of domestic structures were the least enduring or subject to destruction by the elements (fire, floods, winds or earthquakes).
