Bridging the Tiber: Movement, Space and Experience

This thesis details the development of the Tiber bridges of Rome up to the first century BC. It is the first study of the bridges which has applied a new methodology, based on philosophical and spatial theories, to augment the existing literary and archaeological evidence in order to move beyond the study of form and function. It establishes that the bridges spatial development was founded on patterns of movement and access, which over the longue durée resulted in bridges becoming tools of urban development.

Through the application of embodied perception and meshwork, this thesis demonstrates how the bridges' materiality was appropriated to create a temporal flow of correspondence which reflected Roman cultural values and was able to bring the past into the physical present. The mutability of Rome's monumental bridges created familiarity of form which became part of the physical and embodied framework of the city for its inhabitants.

This thesis redefines the relationship between the bridges and the city of Rome, transforming them from the merely functional into meaningful elements of the socio-cultural life and urban development of Rome.