Modus hodiernus: typological transformations of the seven wonders of ancient Rome

J.W. von Goethe’s aphorism (We live in the midst of derivative phenomena and do not know how to get back to the original question) suggests that the ontological implications of a natural environment (in the sense of J. von Uexküll’s Umwelt) can be transferred to a human context, and their meaning can be extended to include the transformation of the great building complexes of Ancient Rome. By employing operations of subtraction and addition—a threefold reading of the architectural object based on the parameters of the imprint of the type, the morphological continuity, and the permanence of the image—the Seven Wonders of Ancient Rome represent an exceptional case of adaptability of a complex to functional transformations and formal mitosis, as well as being susceptible to interpretation by the most representative architects of the so-called Roman School of Architecture.