Lecture 10: Sun, Moon and Stars - Solar Architecture & Indigenous Americas

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing key concepts, historic structures, solar alignments, and cosmological architecture from Lecture 10.

Dark Sky Community

A designation awarded to towns or regions that actively reduce light pollution through controlled outdoor lighting; Breckenridge became the first resort town in Colorado to receive this listing.

Newgrange Roof-box

A specially constructed aperture above the passage entrance of the Newgrange tomb in Ireland (c. $3200\,\text{BCE}$) that allows sunrise light on the winter solstice to penetrate the $19\,\text{m}$ passage and illuminate the inner chamber.

Egyptian Clerestory Lighting

An architectural daylighting technique in ancient Egypt using narrow slits cut into massive stone slab walls to direct shafts of light into dark interior spaces like Hypostyle Halls.

Brise-soleil

A passive architectural shading element (sun-break), either fixed or adjustable, used on building facades to block direct sunlight and reduce solar heat gain.

Pantheon (Rome)

A Roman temple dedicated to seven planetary deities (built $118\text{--}128\,\text{CE}$), featuring a circular cella and a large hemispherical dome with a central top opening.

Oculus

The circular central opening at the apex of a dome, such as in the Roman Pantheon, acting as the primary source of internal daylight and symbolizing a connection to the cosmos.

Cité de Refuge

A Parisian building designed by Le Corbusier ($1933$) that suffered severe overheating due to the removal of mechanical air cooling components, requiring a retrofit in $1952$ with brise-soleil shading and operable windows.

Notre-Dame-du-Haut (Ronchamp)

A pilgrimage chapel designed by Le Corbusier ($1950\text{--}1955$) in France, characterized by thick inward-curving walls, a sweeping concave roof, and deeply recessed stained-glass windows.

Daylighting

The controlled admission of natural sunlight into a building using features like light shelves, clerestories, skylights, and optimized orientation to diminish artificial light usage and improve occupant productivity.

Wedge of Light Alignment

A solar alignment feature designed by Santiago Calatrava for the World Trade Center Oculus, where natural sunlight streams through the skylight every September 11 between $8:46\,\text{a.m.}$ and $10:28\,\text{a.m.}$

Pueblo Bonito

An Ancestral Puebloan site in Chaco Canyon ($828\text{--}1126\,\text{CE}$) known for its massive semi-circular layout and straight linear road systems radiating $10\text{ to }20\,\text{miles}$ into the desert.

Olmec Civilization

The earliest major Central American civilization ($\sim 1500\text{--}300\,\text{BCE}$), regarded as the region's mother culture, known for massive carved stone heads, the ritual ball game, and initial pyramid structures.

The Great Mound (La Venta)

A $\sim 100\,\text{ft}$ tall Olmec clay earthwork ($\sim 800\text{--}400\,\text{BCE}$) built for maize harvest rituals, featuring axial symmetry aligned to the summer solstice sunset over a volcano.

Talud-tablero

A Mesoamerican architectural construction style for stepped pyramids, comprising a sloping wall section (talud) topped by a framed vertical rectangular panel (tablero).

Teotihuacan

A major pre-Columbian city ($\sim 300\,\text{BCE}\text{--}900\,\text{CE}$) laid out on a grid plan, dominated by the Pyramid of the Sun (aligned to the summer solstice) and the Pyramid of the Moon.

Ceiba (World-Tree)

The sacred tree in Maya mythology that serves as the axis mundi connecting the celestial upper realm, the terrestrial middle realm, and the dark underworld (Xibalba).

Stelae

Upright, carved stone slabs or monuments set up in Mesoamerican plazas and temple bases to record ruler lineages, historical deeds, or sacred symbols.

El Castillo (Temple of Kukulkan)

A Maya stepped pyramid at Chichen Itza whose stairways total $365$ steps; on equinoxes, triangular shadows cast on the northern staircase create the illusion of a descending serpent.

El Caracol

A circular tower structure situated on a trapezoidal platform at Chichen Itza, utilized by the Maya as an astronomical observatory.

Nazca Lines

Enormous geoglyphs etched into the desert floor of southern Peru ($\sim 100\,\text{BCE}\text{--}700\,\text{CE}$) forming animal shapes like monkeys and condors as well as long geometric lines.

Puquios

An ancient subterranean aqueduct network with spiral surface access shafts constructed by the Nazca culture to tap and direct groundwater for agricultural irrigation.

Tenochtitlán

The island capital of the Aztec (Mexica) Empire ($1430\text{--}1521\,\text{CE}$), laid out on an orthogonal grid of causeways, street canals, and central sacred complexes.

Templo Mayor (Hueyi Teōcalli)

The primary double-temple complex of Tenochtitlán, featuring twin shrines seated on top of a single stepped pyramid base.

Tzompantli

A public rack structure constructed of wooden poles used in Aztec and Mesoamerican cities to display the severed skulls of human sacrifice victims.