Maison Carrée
One of the best-preserved Roman temples stands in the centre of Nîmes in southern France. It is a typical Roman temple: a high podium, steps only at the front and a deep portico with Corinthian columns. Along the sides the columns are engaged in the walls as half-columns.
The temple was built in the time of Augustus, probably in the last decades BC, and was later dedicated to his grandsons and intended heirs Gaius and Lucius Caesar. It differs from Greek temples in being directional: it is meant to be seen from the front, from the forum, and entered by the one route, up the steps. It is a pseudoperipteral temple, in which the surrounding colonnade has become decoration on the wall.
The Maison Carrée has survived because it has been in constant use: as a town hall, a dwelling, a stable, a church and an archive. Thomas Jefferson saw it in the 1780s and took it as the model for the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, making it an ancestor of many American public buildings. Today it is a World Heritage Site and stands opposite Norman Foster’s Carré d’Art of 1993, a deliberate encounter between ancient and modern architecture.