Ancient origins of the Mexican plaza
Subtitle: from primordial sea to public space
By: by Logan Wagner, Hal Box, and Susan Kline Morehead
Contributors: Box, Hal; Morehead, Susan Kline
Edition: First [edition].
Series: Roger Fullington series in architecture
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Austin
Language: eng
Number of pages: 254
ISBN-13: 9780292719163
Subjects: Public spaces; HISTORY / Latin America / Mexico; Architecture and society; ARCHITECTURE / History / General; History; Plazas
Description: "The plaza has been a defining feature of Mexican urban architecture and culture for at least 4,000 years. Ancient Mesoamericans conducted most of their communal life in outdoor public spaces, and today the plaza is still the public living room in every Mexican neighborhood, town, and city--the place where friends meet, news is shared, and personal and communal rituals and celebrations happen. The site of a community's most important architecture--church, government buildings, and marketplace--the plaza is both sacred and secular space and thus the very heart of the community.. This extensively illustrated book traces the evolution of the Mexican plaza from Mesoamerican sacred space to modern public gathering place. The authors led teams of volunteers who measured and documented nearly one hundred traditional Mexican town centers. The resulting plans reveal the layers of Mesoamerican and European history that underlie the contemporary plaza. The authors describe how Mesoamericans designed their ceremonial centers as embodiments of creation myths--the plaza as the primordial sea from which the earth emerged. They discuss how Europeans, even though they sought to eradicate native culture, actually preserved it as they overlaid the Mesoamerican sacred plaza with the Renaissance urban concept of an orthogonal grid with a central open space. The authors also show how the plaza's historic, architectural, social, and economic qualities can contribute to mainstream urban design and architecture today."--

"Spanning several thousand years of history, this book explores how sacred open space in Mesoamerican communities evolved into the familiar plaza at the heart of most Mexican towns and cities. Reveals that while the Spanish sought to eradicate Mesoamerican culture by building over their cities, they actually preserved the form and usage of the Mesoamerican plaza because Spanish cities were also laid out with a central open space. The authors show how, even today, the Mexican plaza has elements that can be traced back to ancient Mesoamerican culture and, as the site of the church or cathedral, remains a sacred, as well as secular, space"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Authors' Note; title: Acknowledgments; title: Introduction; title: Chapter One. The Primordial Sea: Forming Open Space in Mesoamerica; title: Mesoamerican Concept of Space; title: Mountains and Altepetls; title: Caves, Quatrefoils, and Sunken Courts; title: Types of Open Space in Mesoamerica; title: Triad Centering * U-shaped Courts * Quadrangles; title: Quincunx: Symbol of the Cosmos; title: Ballcourts; title: The Sunken Court of Teopantecuanitlan; title: The Dallas Plaque: A Cosmogram; title: Chapter Two. Forming Spanish Towns in Mesoamerican Culture; title: People and Ideas; title: The Invasion; title: The Europeans Making Contact; title: European Plazas in the Early Sixteenth Century; title: Origins of the Plaza; title: Building New World Towns; title: Types of Towns * First Acts and Encounters; title: Laws of the Indies; title: Conversion; title: Quincunx Patios; title: Relaciones Geograficas; title: Chapter Three. Sixteenth-Century Communal Open Spaces (Five Hundred Years Later); title: Caves and Crevices; title: Amecameca, State of Mexico * Zoquizoquipan, Hidalgo * Valladolid, Yucatan; title: Quincunxial Arrangements; title: Atlatlahuacan, Morelos * Huejotzingo, Puebla * Huaquechula, Puebla * Zacualpan de Amilpas, Morelos; title: Terraced Mountains; title: Molango, Hidalgo * Achiutla, Oaxaca * Yanhuitlan, Oaxaca; title: Sunken Courts; title: Tepoztlan, Morelos * Tochimilco, Puebla * Calpan, Puebla; title: Ballcourts and Bullrings; title: Villa D&iacute;az Ordaz, Oaxaca * Tlanalapa, Hidalgo * Tepeapulco, Hidalgo; title: Open Space Ensembles; title: Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca * Tlacolula, Oaxaca * Otumba de Gomez Far&iacute;as, State of Mexico * Tlacochahuaya, Oaxaca * Tepeaca, Puebla * Etla, Oaxaca; title: Bishop Quiroga's Utopias in Michoacan; title: Tzintzuntzan, Michoacan * Patzcuaro, Michoacan * Santa Fe de la Laguna, Michoacan * Erongar&iacute;cuaro, Michoacan * Angahuan, Michoacan; title: Visible Overlays and Deliberate Alignments; title: Mitla, Oaxaca * Hacienda Xaaga, Oaxaca * Teposcolula, Oaxaca * Coixtlahuaca, Oaxaca * Epazoyucan, Hidalgo; title: The Yucatan Experience; title: Yothol&iacute;n, Yucatan * Tibolon, Yucatan * Izamal, Yucatan; title: Chapter Four. Origins and Evolution; title: Epilogue: Plazas in the Twenty-first Century; title: The San Miguel Example; title: Qualities of Successful Plazas; title: Sprawl and the American Myth; title: Appendix. Measured Drawings: Plans of Towns; title: Notes; title: Glossary; title: Bibliography; title: Index.