Sotto l'asfalto del Colosseo

Paradoxical as it is, even now, an important building constituent of the Colosseum is still largely under the asphalt. It is the so-called area of the great travertines, a ring surrounding the building with a thickness of 17.50 meters, paved with large slabs and marked by 136 perimeter stela about 1.90 meters high, also travertine, upon which, in all probability, with wooden barriers the crowds entering and exiting were directed.
In 2017 a working group of the Department of Architecture of Roma Tre University drew up a plan Piano di assetto dell’area archeologica monumentale del Colosseo, which identified in the reconstitution of the weave of urban paths that connected the amphitheater to the inhabited city and in the new configuration of the spaces adjacent to the monument the main tools to overcome the current decay of its urban values.

Keywords: Colosseum, Public space, Urban design, Monumental space.