Dear Emperor Hadrian,
My client, Apollodorus, has created many great works under your adoptive father, Trajan. Now he has completed the design and building of your Pantheon. I think you should give him more public praise and also some wealth for this work. What is my justification for this? Well, let me tell you about my knowledge...
Recently, a crazy man with a purple coat and a blue box took me to the future to a land called America.
US Supreme Court Building
Does this look familiar? Well, it's not the Pantheon. This is the US Supreme Court building in Washington DC. Like the portico on the Pantheon, this one contains three rows of eight Corinthian columns supporting the pediment. Put simply, Apollodorus' design for the portico was so revolutionary that it was remembered and emulated in a significant building on the other side of the world nearly 1500 years later! Surely an architect with such long-celebrated work deserves heaps of praise...
Not too far from there...
Interior of dome in US Capitol Building in Washington DC
Another building in Washington DC holds great resemblance to the Pantheon. The dome in the US Capitol Building was modeled after the Pantheon dome. Like the one in the Pantheon, this dome uses coffers to reduce the weight of the dome to keep it from collapsing. It also uses a series of arches around the dome to sustain the weight and create downward thrust to keep the structure stable. I was told that this design for domes was used in other Capitol buildings around the US, as well as the Jefferson Library at the University of Virginia, and that it is and has been the predominant design in all of Western architecture. The importance of this non-reinforced dome design that Apollodorus created cannot be overstated. He revolutionized the creation of monumental structures in the future, as the influence of the Pantheon can be seen everywhere.