Cholula Archeological Site Museum B. Arch Thesis Project
Year: 2004 Location: Cholula, Mexico Site: 4200m2 Program:
Exhibition rooms, Auditorium, Offices, Front-desk Botanical Garden
Project Type: Architecture
M a n u e l ﾃ」 i l a Architecture + Urban Design manuelavilaprojects.com
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In Aztec times Cholula was the religious heart of the empire, considered to be the holy city of the plumed-serpent god, Quetzalcoatl. In 1519 Hernan Cortes destroyed the majority of the city and slaughtered its inhabitants, in what has come to be known as the “Massacre at Cholula.� What remains in present day Cholula from the prehispanic era can be found at the archeological site of Cholula, which contains one of the largest pyramids in the world.
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The pyramid of Cholula was built out of adobe, which gives it the appearance of a natural hill. After Cortes lay waste to the Aztec city, he built a church, known as the Church of Remedios, on the summit of the pyramid. The Spanish resurrected churches on the majority of the Aztec pyramids in the city, and today Cholula is famous for the more than 100 churches that speckle the skyline. The space where the project is placed is generated by the empty space between two prehispanic pyramids of monumental dimensions. This empty spaces functions as a plaza, which the INAH Museum project proposes to redesign.
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The project has two fundamental intentions in its design: to maintain a low height of no more than one level, and to exploit the longitudinal in form. This permits the museum to relate to the built context in its surroundings and also evades the creation of competitive tensions between the three points that converge in the plaza (the two pyramids and the proposed museum.) Finally, it allows for the preservation of the skyline of bell towers, cupolas and spires from the churches inserted in the city.
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