Documentazione e conoscenza di complessi architettonici stratificati: rilievo integrato e rappresentazione della Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi al Foro di Augusto

Our intention is to deal with an experience on the study and the survey of the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi and through it provide a piece of what could be a useful methodology to achieve the documentation and knowledge of architectural complex systems. A fundamental principle on which the work is founded is to use all the material, after verifying that it has been produced on the subject. The comparison allows us to share the experience, to understand and evaluate the choices made by others and to motivate our own, in accordance or not with those already made in the past. The comparison may relate to the survey, from the surveying techniques to the graphic restitution, the choice of views in drawings, the graphic representation that often reflects the time in which it was drawn, but not only. In the case of this architecture, the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi , which has passed through several transformations over time and therefore has in fact changed facies several times - morphology and its configuration and the environment in which it is placed - surveys and more generally, the drawings of the past provide very important information in the understanding of its history. In this context we work with new integrated methods of measuring - that made it possible to record a certain amount of information and data that actually constitute a heritage already objective enough to be used by other users who operate in this area - and compared to past, alternative methods of representation and communication of the information acquired; synthesis and representation of the latter produced in this study also aim to establish themselves as an original contribution to the interpretation of the data collected. The main objective of this study was to understand and communicate the changes which occurred in the building, from the foundation of the original nucleus to the current situation, highlighting the key stages of the construction that have made the Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi the present building. In the selection of the evolutionary phases of the building to be represented in the story of its long history the focus has mainly aimed at those which have made serious changes to the morphology of the building – gradually transforming it as it is today - and that have changed its relations - openings, connections – with the outside; and particularly at the moments in which wall alignments and elevations were built, generating obviously new forms. The Casa di Rodi, as a complex system, represents and brings to an inexhaustible topic; never as in this case it was important to begin a work of knowledge, while leaving open space towards future research and studies.