UW ARCH 150 - Lecture 13. Ancient Central and South American Architecture

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Lecture 13 Ancient Central and South American Architecture One of the earliest civilization o Ancient Central and South America o Vast but empty territory Lack of occupancy o Indigenous people had established a civilization though the rest of the world thought it was untamed or barely exploited Signs of extensive human intervention on landscape Plaza ceremonial space surrounded by architecture Linked cities by infrastructure Architectures that imitate natural form blend in with the landscape Celestial relationship North America o Mound building Animal shapes Burial purposes Celestial seasonal observation o Americas were well settled before the exploration of America Axial planning Pyramid reoccurring in different civilizations Orientation to natural landscape Outwardly focused Astronomical knowledge expressed in spatial arrangement in Limited and restricted interior spaces architecture Conscious orientation o Orientation to the sky o Olmec Writing system Teotihuac n Shows strong astronomy knowledge Shows signs of settlement o Earliest Meso American site Huge city Highly axial Large ceremonial center oriented to the cardinal directions north south east west the mountain peaks and the stars High flat dry plane surrounded by mountains Religious administrative center Elevated roadway Stepped pyramids and small temple Never had a city wall o Core of the city Stepped pyramids Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun Lower platform used for different ceremonies Built by unknown culture Aztec people gave it the name Teotihuac n Place of the Gods At the end of the axis core of the city with Cerro Gordo the mountain o Pyramid of the Moon behind The pyramid mimics the mountain behind it Connected to the Avenue of the Dead On the other end is the Temple of Quetzalcoatl dedicated to the feathered serpent Order within large landscape o Pyramid of the Sun Series of platform with ramping slopes Stairway allow ascend to top platform No continuous angle or sloping side nor vertical element So it is something between a ziggurat and a pyramid But there s a alternation of a ramping side and a vertical face with the sculpture of feathered serpent Finished stone o Yucat n peninsula Tikal Chichen Itza Uxmal o Long standing o Flourished in common era o Complex religious and merchant cities o Major monumental features but are now ruins o Limestone readily available and were used in a lot of stone buildings o Spanish came Mayan civilization Jungles kept Spanish out Left lots of areas undisturbed Lots of myths developed o Great advanced city states Agriculture and irrigation Writing system only recently deciphered Tikal o Mayan city modern Guatemala o Buildings closely clustered o Stone ceremonial buildings stones are durable materials o Grand plaza o Pyramids stepped pyramids with temples on top o Ruins on the bottom left of slide 24 of apartment complex o Residential city o Most people lived outside of this city o Stone structure mark the center o Residential buildings are extinct made of wood nondurable o Pyramids Stepped bases with temples on top Angle and vertical element alternates Vertical form Celestial closer to God Temple small occupiable space with a comb shape element on top The original burial structure is much smaller lots of the size was added on later Only priest were allowed into the limited space o Ruins of Tikal Link disperse city together o The jungle was took over after the civilization declined Remote sensing o Reveal hidden details in land using satellite Found roadways causeway agricultural cannels by remote sensing Tikal suddenly couldn t house the huge population anymore o Pictures on the walls depicted religion and government Mayan civilization o Housed a large population o Collapsed quickly mystery Chichen Itza o Flat site on Yucat n peninsula o Lots of water available through wells o Jungle landscape o El Castillo modern name Square in base Stepped Temple structure on top Stairways on each of the 4 sides Reflects cosmology and astronomically advance Each stairway has 91 steps multiple by 4 the number of days in Mayan calendar for year 18 segments 18 months in Mayan calendar Axes where sun rises and set Cosmology On a certain day the shadow casted on the stairway forms the body of the serpent and it s connected to the head stone down at the bottom of the pyramid o Ball court Highly set rings Great acoustic o Caracol Sacrifice of losers at the end vivid game snail Punctuated by windows Observatory Circular series of platform on the tower Extreme horizon o Aztec calendar 12 months Extremely accurate more advanced than European calendar Accurate math system Advanced culture Lecture 14 Architecture of Ancient America Tenochtitlan o Capital of the Aztecs present day Mexico City o Manmade land o As the city was expanding it was sinking o Intense agriculture of the chinampas small floating garden shown on the left picture on slide 6 artificial agricultural island o Ceremonial center double pyramids and temple Relatively limited interior space restricted access priest and high member of ruling Aztec empire Cortex Spanish landed in the East of this site and ended the mighty Central square zaocalo of Mexico city landed on top of the Tenochtitlan s ceremonial center Another site of Spanish conquest Machu Picchu o Two maps on the right Inca empire shown o Inca empire Great infrastructure of road way Machu Picchu Not known to North Americans Brought to the attention of the world in the early 20th century reevaluation Latest understanding the site was a royal state sustained by the service labor Well removed from the main city Great wealth Slide 14 Famous explorer standing near the stone mirroring the mountain mirroring the natural environment The use of stone in construction o There were many different cultures influenced the architecture of the site and the stones reflect that Stones aligned precisely and carefully shaped Gravity was the only thing holding them together Extensive terracing Agricultural use Residential use bring in water The whole system is connected to the road system o Creating an infrastructure to link distant sites o Close connection between infrastructure and the landscape and clear intervention of the landscape by humans Lecture 14 cont d Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture France took over what is known as today s France Area in green earlier Byzantine empire What was all in Romans control comes into control of different emperors Charlemagne Charles the


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UW ARCH 150 - Lecture 13. Ancient Central and South American Architecture

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