For some time now, roofs have become leisure spaces, whether in large luxurious buildings or houses on the outskirts. This condition, however, is not limited to our times. Different cultures at different times used flat roofs in their architecture, in different ways.
The first evidence of the use of roofs goes back to the Mesopotamian peoples and their Ziggurats. Occupying the territory where Iran and Iraq are located today, the Sumerians, considered the first civilization on record, built prominent religious temples of mud bricks that could also have other uses in 4,000 BC. In the case of the famous Tower of Babel, besides its religious function, the Ziggurat of Etemenanki also had a scientific role. The scribes observed the stars from the roofs of the Ziggurat and knew some planets and stars such as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Sun and the Moon. Another famous Ziggurat, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, about which little is known, was possibly built by Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century BC in homage to his wife and had a lush garden on its roof.
Even though these religious temples had a usable roof element, it is believed that most people lived in cramped self-built houses arranged around courtyards and near the temples themselves. Seen from Tibet to Greece and the Middle East, useful roofs appear in different ways and moments as a vernacular architectural solution that seeks to respond to cultural, climatic and geographic needs, depending on the social organization of each people.
In Greece, for example, to protect themselves from pirates and occupy areas next to cliffs, dwellings were dug into the mountain, and their roofs were useful and for collective use. In the medinas of Islamic cities, old urban centers with an occupation similar to that described by the Mesopotamian peoples, with irregular, narrow streets and crowded buildings, one sees the roof as a space for work or even domestic activities.
This type of occupation had a strong influence in countries such as Spain, Portugal and Italy, where in small and crowded buildings, roofs became an alternative for accessing sunlight in houses, becoming primarily a place of support for domestic maintenance and, later, a leisure space. Later, with the colonization of Spain and Portugal, mainly in Latin America, this same typology was repeated, as is well portrayed in the film Roma (2018) by Alfonso Cuarón, which takes place in Mexico. Mainly on the outskirts of large cities, where accelerated urban growth makes the territory also crowded, many see varied and diverse uses for slabs, from leisure to maintenance.
On the other hand, the history of architecture formally recognizes the roof garden after the modern movement when Le Corbusier listed the five points of modern architecture seeking to affirm the architectural advantages of construction using reinforced concrete and the independent bearing structure. Along with pilotis, horizontal windows, free design of the façade and free design of the ground plan, the roof garden is, for Corbusier, an attempt to restore the natural surroundings removed from the ground floor, bringing residents closer to nature. From the modern movement onwards, and with technological advances, roofing gained new and varied forms and activities, whether in homes, residential or commercial buildings.
Viewpoints, swimming pools, restaurants, vegetable gardens, apartments, the area that some cultures considered house maintenance, keeping the water tank and the laundry room - today, the roof is one of the most valued spaces in buildings, both for architecture and the market. While this is happening, the population continues to instinctively find the same solution that past civilizations found in the absence of open spaces and horizons: occupying the top of constructions.
Reference: Clarissa Martins de Lucena Santafé Aguiar, "Terraço Jardim: Uma ideia para (re)inventar". Access here.
