Pre-Columbian Architecture: Middle America and Peru Notes

Middle America: Influences

  • Geographical

    • Materials: limestone, volcanic rock; “Tezontli” a porous stone ranging in color from black to crimson, much favored by the Aztec builders from early times

    • Adobe brick made from sun-dried clay was widely used as it continues to be today

    • Hardwood

  • Geological

    • (Same materials context as geographical influence) Limestone, volcanic rock; Tezontli; adobe brick; hardwood

  • Climatic

    • Dry high plains contrasted with tropical conditions and impenetrable rain forests of the latter

  • Historical, Social & Religious

    • Earliest civilization: the Olmec, on the gulf coast in the 1st millennium BC; from it developed the great Maya culture

    • Later civilizations: Teotihuacan (c. 150–350 AD), Toltecs, Aztec (14th century)

    • Most important gods: sun, moon, rain, corn

    • Societies were based on a powerful ruling priesthood

Middle America: Architectural Character

  • 1. Temple Pyramid – the “house of the god”; focal point of the cities and sacred enclosures in Central America

    • Early examples built with clay and reinforced with large stones; later constructions used rubble masonry or adobe faced with stone; color added over plaster coating

  • 2. For all buildings of importance, stone was employed, either finely dressed or carved or laid as roughly dressed rubble

  • 3. Stone facing panels carved with representations of jaguar, coyotes and eagles; occur in Toltec work

  • 4. Geometric patterns formed by projecting stones; suggestive of woven designs and characteristics of Mixtec–Zapotec culture (architecture in Pre-Columbian America)

  • 5. Roofs were flat; windows were not used; doorways were square-headed

  • 6. Maya Arch – a corbelled arch of triangular shape common on the buildings of the Maya Indians of Yucatan

Middle America: Examples

  • 1. THE PYRAMID OF THE SUN (c. 250 A.D.)

    • Stone-faced pyramid rises in four stages to a height of 66\ \mathrm{m} and is over 213\ \mathrm{m}\times 213\ \mathrm{m} in plan

    • Base dimensions: 213\ \mathrm{m}\times 213\ \mathrm{m}; height 66\ \mathrm{m}

  • 2. CITADEL, TEOTIHUACAN (c. 600)

  • 3. TEMPLE OF THE GIANT JAGUAR, TIKAL (c. 500)

    • An impressive example of a classical Maya Temple Pyramid

    • Plan: 34\ \mathrm{m} \times 29.8\ \mathrm{m}

    • Rises in 10\ stages to a height of 30.5\ \mathrm{m}

    • Above it rises a high stone roof–comb, making a total height for the pyramid and its temple of 47.5\ \mathrm{m}

  • 4. TEMPLE OF THE WARRIORS, CHICHEN ITZA (c. 1100)

    • Has a striking resemblance to the North Pyramid of Tula

    • Approached through a colonnade of square columns in its interior; external walls decorated with trunk-like forms associated with the long-nosed Maya rain god

  • 5. PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS (c. 900)

    • One-storey building measuring 98\ \mathrm{m} \times 11.9\ \mathrm{m}; sits on a high base of central mass linked by great triangular corbelled arches to smaller blocks on either side; contains twenty chambers, all covered by corbelled vaults

    • The façade is 8.5\ \mathrm{m} high and divided into two deep horizontal bands

    • Lower band: plain ashlar masonry with eleven door openings with architrave from the face of the wall

    • Upper band: decorated with intricate patterns in relief reminiscent of woven design

Tenochtitlan

  • The ancient capital of the Aztec, Tenochtitlan stood 8000\ \mathrm{ft} above sea level in a landscape of bare volcanic mountains and forested valleys

  • The sacred center, The Great Plaza of Tenochtitlan, now lies under Mexico City

Peru: Influences

  • Geographical

    • The region falls into two sections: the great Andes and the area between the Andes and the Pacific

    • The Andes provide some of the wildest and most desolate landscapes in the world

  • Geological

    • In the coastal region adobe brick was the basic building material, even for the largest structures in the highlands

    • Three types of stones were used for important buildings: black andesite, yucay limestones and diorite porphyry

  • Climatic

    • Dominated by warm regions, tropical, temperate, arid and cold

  • Historical, Social & Religious

    • Advance civilization existed in Peru before the first millennium BC

    • The Inca in the central highlands settled in the Cuzco basin, where they founded for two centuries

    • The Inca waged wars against neighboring tribes until their superiority was established in the fifteenth century

    • Inca extended their empire into Central America to South Chile, and North to South Colombia

    • Alpaca (animal) was of great importance to the Peruvian economy; its fine long hair used for textiles, with great weaving skills developed

    • Peruvians were skillful in working gold, silver and copper and their alloys

    • Under the Inca, religion and the state were interdependent

Peru: Architectural Character

  • 1. Adobe brick was the basic building material

  • 2. Great terraced structures like the Temple of the Sun

  • 3. Roofs were sometimes gabled; openings kept to a minimum; architecture is one of strong simple forms

  • 4. Houses were generally of one room with one door and no windows

  • 5. In the highlands, simple buildings were usually constructed with rubble, sometimes bonded with clay

  • 6. For public buildings and fortresses, dressed stones were used

  • 7. Decoration is found cut into the great andesite lintel of the Gate of the Sun

  • 8. Roofs, even in public buildings, were covered with thatch; although in the southern highlands corbelled stone roofs were sometimes used

Peru: Examples

  • 1. MACHU PICCHU

    • A late Inca town, sited on a saddle between two mountains and overlooking the Urubamba River, which winds 900\ \mathrm{m} below it

    • Its buildings were constructed of local stones, using various walling types from coursed ashlar to roughly dressed rubble, incorporating characteristic trapezoidal doorways

    • Masonry gables still stand

  • 2. GATE OF THE SUN, TIWANAKU (c. 1000–1200)

    • One of the most important monuments of the great ceremonial site in the Titicaca Basin

    • Its gateway is an enormous piece of sculpture, cut from a single andesite block measuring approximately 3\ \mathrm{m}\text{ high} \times 3.8\ \mathrm{m}\text{ wide}

  • 3. SACSACHUAMAN (c. 1475)

    • Built as fortress to protect Cuzco, the sacred city of the Incas

    • Three stages of terraces, with retaining walls of yucay limestones, stretched more than half a kilometer

    • The walls follow a saw-toothed pattern in plan; the lowest wall is formed of monoliths measuring up to 8.2\ \mathrm{m} high and 3.6\ \mathrm{m} thick

    • Some of the stones are roughly squared, polygonal; all are fitted together with great precision