CHU SIN CHUNG Adrian 332874 Foundations of Architecture 702-242 Final Essay: 5 Toby Horrocks Thursday: 4:15
5. Platforms and pyramids played an important social and cultural role in the Ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt and pre-Columbian America. Choose ONE of these cultures and discuss how these roles were expressed in their architectural treatment, function and special context (i.e. within a city and/or a natural landscape).
The culture of pre-Columbian America has been shaped by several civilisations, including the Olmecs, the Maya, the Aztec, the Teotihuacán or the Toltec amongst others. Although all these civilisations were disperse, both on a spatial and a temporal scale, they have adopted similar cultural identities as translated in the architecture of the Mesoamerican area. This architecture includes platforms, pyramids and temples, and the forms that these architectures have adopted, especially pyramids, were mainly dictated by religion, astronomy and cosmology. In this essay, I shall focus on two preColumbian cities – Teotihuacán and Tenochtitlan – and discuss how the social and religious aspects of these cultures influenced and were expressed in the architecture and planning languages of these pre-Columbian American cities.
Religion in pre-Columbian America was based on astronomy and mythology. For example, one of the most fundamental beliefs of the people of Mesoamerica was that people and gods have emerged from caves1, and that entrances of caves are associated with hidden treasures and hidden sources of water (thus life). In Teotihuacán, this strong relationship with the holy landscape is further enhanced by its location surrounded by mountains (fig.1)
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