[75] Little is known about how the Romans viewed triumphal arches. It was originally built as a barracks and stables for the British Household Cavalry but later became an important military headquarters for the British Army. Almost no substantial examples survive from before about 100 BC, and most of the major survivals are from the later empire, after about 100 AD. [69] The Romans commissioned obelisks in an ancient Egyptian style. Construction began in. The building itself is an open-air, circular structure that features a shallow dome supported by 26 Ionic columns. "Rome, ancient, Architecture." [72] Horace wrote that during his time flower gardens became a national indulgence. Some triumphal arches were surmounted by a statue or a currus triumphalis, a group of statues depicting the emperor or general in a quadriga. Roman roads were vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 500 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. After Christianity became the official religion, the basilica shape was found appropriate for the first large public churches, with the attraction of avoiding reminiscences of the Greco-Roman temple form. It was designed by the highly renowned architect Daniel Burnham and officially opened its doors in 1907 -- but wasn't fully completed until 1908. L'Arc de Triomphe was the tallest triumphal arch in the world until the completion of the Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City in 1938. The Reichstag, officially Deutscher Bundestag - Plenarbereich Reichstagsgebäude, is an iconic edifice in Berlin, Germany. The building's most prominent feature, the dome, has dominated London's skyline for over 300 years. The oldest known basilica, the Basilica Porcia, was built in Rome in 184 BC by Cato the Elder during the time he was Censor. These storehouses were also used to house keep large sums of money and were used much like personal storage units today are. Their construction and maintenance was a major part of ancient Roman religion, and all towns of any importance had at least one main temple, as well as smaller shrines. Areas outside city limits were left open as farmland. [47] The platform on which the temple sat was typically raised higher in Roman examples than Greek, with up ten or twelve or more steps rather than the three typical in Greek temples; the Temple of Claudius was raised twenty steps. In new Roman towns the forum was usually located at, or just off, the intersection of the main north–south and east–west streets (the cardo and decumanus). The decline of Roman religion was relatively slow, and the temples themselves were not appropriated by the government until a decree of the Emperor Honorius in 415. There were precursors to the triumphal arch within the Roman world; in Italy, the Etruscans used elaborately decorated single bay arches as gates or portals to their cities. The ruins were made safe in the 1960s and were only fully restored in the early 1990s after German reunification. It was built to honor those who fought and died during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Internally, the monument is lined with white Georgia marble with an axed finish and a pink Tennesse marble floor. A third type of villa provided the organizational center of the large farming estates called latifundia; such villas might be lacking in luxuries. It was originally designed by the civil engineer Francis Fowke, who won an 1864 competition to design the building. The building was duly closed, subject to remediation works. Marble is not found especially close to Rome, and was only rarely used there before Augustus, who famously boasted that he had found Rome made of brick and left it made of marble, though this was mainly as a facing for brick or concrete. The Alcántara Bridge is a Roman stone arch bridge built over the Tagus River at Alcántara, Spain between 104 and 106 AD by an order of the Roman Emperor Trajan in 98. Vomitoria or entrances and exits were made available to the audience.[51]. The spandrels usually depicted flying Victories, while the attic was often inscribed with a dedicatory inscription naming and praising the triumphator. As town houses were replaced by tall insula (apartment buildings), these urban gardens were replaced by window boxes or roof gardens. [19][20][21] They probably were inspired by Greek and Hellenic examples, as well as by regularly planned cities that were built by the Etruscans in Italy.