Annette Haug’s new monograph, "Öffentliche Räume in Pompeji. Zum Design urbaner Atmosphären", introduces the benefits of a novel paradigm for the study of the city in the ancient Roman world, the notion of the “Design urbaner Atmosphären.” The phenomenon of the “urban atmosphere” has been, for some time, the subject of interest among phenomenologists interested in how modern space is structured and experienced, from the ephemeral qualities of air to the physical presence of architecture.1 Similar phenomenological approaches to multi-sensory experience have in the past decade become a productive area of research, too, in the study of texts and spaces in the Roman world.2 As Haug admits, the dynamism and fluidity of the trialectic between space, spatial practice, and the affective habitus of individuals3, creates problems for the study of historic cities like Pompeii, whose walls remain standing, yet without their ancient inhabitants. The book’s focus, therefore, is on elucidating how the architectural design of Pompeii contributes to the production of an “urban atmosphere”, particularly with regards to how public spaces are intentionally designed to visually (and otherwise) impact an individual’s sensory experience. Unlike previous approaches to the urban space of Pompeii in particular – which have tended towards the cartographic – Haug’s is a three-dimensional, multi-sensory reconstruction of urban space and experience that combines spatial syntax with careful considerations of the aesthetics of decoration and the materiality of the built-world.

After a brief introduction (pp. 1–15) setting out the terminology of atmospheres and their utility to the interpretation of the material evidence at Pompeii, Part II individually examines Pompeii’s public spaces: streets (pp. 15–96); the forum (pp. 96–135); sacred areas (pp. 136–205); the theater and amphitheater (pp. 205–227); the public baths (pp. 228–279); and commercial spaces (pp. 279–336). Each sub-section follows a similar formula. After a general introduction to a given space, the constituent parts of each space – including, e.g., the structures bounding these spaces, building materials, sub-spaces within, wall art, and statuary – are described in painstaking detail, with attention paid to the design strategies employed in the space and their intended effects on individuals. Where quantity precludes exhaustive coverage, an illustrative example receives the focus; such is the case with the Temple of Apollo acting as a representative case study for Pompeii’s sacred areas.

In Part III (pp. 337–374), “Atmosphären als Kategorie der Wahrnehmung,” Haug transitions to a consideration of how the spatial experience (i.e. how individuals moved through space), the surface details of materials (i.e. their sensory impact), and the presence and content of images contribute to the overall atmosphere of a given space. Unlike the previous section, Part III combines a consideration of all previously discussed spaces in a broadly comparative fashion. This approach allows Haug to discuss how the various façade surfaces of the forum – marble or plaster, but all strikingly white – contributed to an overall sense of “visueller Kälte und Erhabenheit,” while the similar use of marble for counters in restaurants was visually impressive yet, as a result, inviting, given the lack of marble in the facades of domestic or commercial spaces (p. 344). Where Part III is particularly impactful, though, is in its consideration of images, which proliferate in ancient urban environments and reflect the inherent status hierarchy of urban life based on their location, content, and density (p. 373–4); they also provided orientation for the viewer, who understood how to move through and exist within specific parts of the city based on the design and intention of the images confronting them.

Part IV (pp. 375–407), “Atmosphären als Kategorie der Deutung,” examines how meaning is assigned to particular spaces, both intuitively and intentionally, by individuals. Haug focuses on age, foreignness of material or iconography, and quality of decoration as meaningful categories of subjective experience of the urban atmosphere, all informed by a presumed cultural knowledge. Of particular interest here is the nod to Jan Assmann’s theory of communicative and collective memory, which explicitly structures Haug’s analysis of how the age of Pompeii’s architecture was interpreted, but also implicitly informs the following two categories, as what is “foreign” or “imported” and what is “quality” must by necessity be a function of a broader cultural memory.

Part IV also draws from Haug’s recently published and forthcoming work on the design of city quarters and neighborhoods.4 By their very nature as dwelled-in spaces, neighborhoods are not solely products of urban design intentions, but are constantly (re)created through emergent social practice, as Haug rightfully points out (esp. p. 398, n. 98). Nevertheless, Haug does make the argument that certain parts of Pompeii would have had “bestimmten Erlebnisqualitäten” as a function of the types of spaces in those areas, their uses, and the foot-traffic associated with them. The working-class, cramped character of the old-city neighborhood, packed with neighbors and shop-patrons alike, was worlds apart from the residential neighborhood in Region VI, with its lack of commercial establishments and large luxury townhomes closed off to the street. The result is a somewhat different notion of what constitutes a “neighborhood” in Pompeii that embraces the messy dynamism and fluidity of social practice, space, and time.

Two archaeological appendices round out the work, which will be of particular interest to those studying the relevant spaces. The first provides information on the decorative elements for all bars, grocers, and restaurants in Pompeii, while the second identifies the type, location, material, and number of all column capitals extant in the city. A wide-ranging bibliography and three helpful indices (place, ancient author, topic) conclude the volume.

As a representative example of Haug’s methodology, especially in Parts III and IV of the book, I would like to focus here on the work’s treatment of commercial spaces. Haug locates the aestheticization of mundane commercial spaces like bars, restaurants, and inns at the beginning of the imperial period, as part of a larger transition in Roman society (and the economy) valorizing production and consumption. The decoration of these spaces, then, is interpreted as intending to enhance the commercial experience for a customer, while their spatial design attracts potential customers into the space. Haug makes a helpful distinction between “Bars”, “Gaststätten,” and “Herbergen,” based both on their spatial and decorative components, even though in almost all cases a bar counter is present. The counters for bars tend to be more highly decorated, where the walls of restaurants receive the extra care. The more intimate “Aufenthaltsräume” of restaurants, however, receive even greater attention to their decoration, as do the atria, all in service to allowing “indes jedermann einen gehobenen Lebensstil, wenn auch zeitlich begrenzt” (p. 310). Where bars proliferate along the major urban axes and act as extensions of the social environment of the street, restaurants tend to be in quieter, more residential parts of the city (p. 394). In the case of these establishments, Haug persuasively demonstrates how design intentions both respond to and alter the urban atmosphere of a particular part of the city.

In general, Haug’s attention to particular spaces is admirable, and the breadth of the analysis impressive. One does wonder, however, whether more attention could be paid to the spatial context of these commercial establishments within their neighborhoods, particularly with respect to the competition between establishments that certainly influenced design choices at some level and thus contributed to the atmosphere both within, and directly outside, these spaces. The Caupona of Euxinus (I.11.11, discussed at pp. 325–8), for instance, shares the same street corner as the Caupona of Amarantus (I.9.11); interestingly, the orientation of the bar counter for each is opposite, with the counter in the Caupona of Euxinus facing east, and that of the Caupona of Amarantus facing west. Could this be purposeful design to attract customers from specific directions and neighborhoods? And how might customers respond, surely understanding that another option is available just a few steps further afield?

Finally, there is a biding question about the analytical utility of the language of atmospheres in general – are we merely dressing up Henri Lefebvre’s spatial trialectic in new phenomenological clothing, having shed its Marxist rags? Similarities abound, as Haug indicates (see p. 2, n. 13), and she contends that the emphasis on the full sensory experience of urban spaces beyond the visual is one of the primary interests of the atmospheric approach. To be sure, the “third term” of Lefebvre’s trialectic, “l’espace vécu”, is notoriously ambiguous, but it does have its basis, as Lefebvre states, in an “affective kernel or center”5. Even so, the benefit of the phenomenological approach would appear to be its overwhelming focus on the subjective experience – tastes, sounds, touch, smells, sights, feelings – that Lefebvre often overlooks. Haug makes a persuasive case, to this reader, that these are precisely what matter in any study of urbanism. Although not broached in this book, one can see the exciting opportunities going forward for examining how identity, status, gender, or class might inflect the affective habitus of different individuals and their experiences of urban atmospheres.

That Haug’s analysis prompts such reflections is a testament to its quality; the work is a compelling and original piece of scholarship (Parts III and IV in particular) that nudges the study of urbanism in the ancient world in a fruitful direction, one that centers the subjective experiences of urban life. For a book nominally about the urban spaces of Pompeii, too, its appeal will extend beyond the archaeologically inclined to specialists in art history, urban studies (ancient and modern), and phenomenological approaches to space, among other fields. Alongside Haug’s numerous other entries in the study of ancient urbanism, this monograph and its approach to the material evidence will need to be reckoned with by subsequent research in the field, as will the paradigm of urban atmospheres that the book introduces to the study of the ancient world.

Notes:
1 Gernot Böhme, Atmosphäre. Essays zur neuen Ästhetik, Frankfurt am Main 1995. See Matthew Gandy, Urban Atmospheres, in: Cultural Geographies 24.3 (2017), p. 353–374, for an introduction to the approach.
2 E.g. Eleanor Betts (ed), Senses of the Empire, Abingdon 2017; Annette Haug / Patric-Alexander Kreuz (eds), Stadterfahrung als Sinneserfahrung in der römischen Kaiserzeit, Turnhout 2016.
3 I.e. their characteristic sensory responses to the material world, connecting things, places, people, and feelings.
4 Annette Haug / Adrian Hielscher / Anna-Lena Krüger (eds), Neighbourhoods and City Quarters in Antiquity. Design and Experience, Berlin 2023; Annette Haug, City Quarters as Categories of Experience, forthcoming.
5 Henri Lefebvre (trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith), The Production of Space, Cambridge 1992.