When reflecting upon what we understand about colonialism, the erasure of Mesoamerican architecture is often overlooked as being an effect of colonialism, not a simultaneous change that rippled through Spanish colonies. The ruins and teocallis that stand today are fragments of what we understand as indigenous, Mesoamerican architecture, but they don’t tell a linear story of how the conquest of Spanish architecture dominated these colonies in the end. In this article, I will be reflecting on how the erasure of Mesoamerican architecture ended the possibilities of continuous indigenous architecture practices, and how what was left behind through colonialism, can be critiqued as an invasive parasite. To narrow my argument into one sphere of Mesoamerican architecture, I will be analyzing the architecture of the Aztecs, and how their building practices were significant both culturally and societally. This would contrast the practices of the Spanish, who built buildings that embedded absolute power and foreign architectural language into their landscape. The parallel of architecture that begins to emerge is one that exemplifies the use of architecture as a tool, becoming embedded into landscapes and erasing indigenous practices.
The Aztecs, in particular, had a style of architecture that reflected upon their cultural and polytheistic beliefs. They had vibrant cities organized with central squares and temples to honour various gods. The founding of their capital city, Tenochtitlan, was where temples like Templo Mayor were built to honor Huitzliopochtli, the god of sun and war, among others. Likewise, the Aztecs also had advanced infrastructure systems of farming called chinampas, which utilized small streams and created floating gardens to cultivate crops. With an estimated population of 50,000 people living in just Tenochtitlan alone, the Aztecs were also able to create urban planning systems of grids to organize people, land for cultivation, and pyramids for worship and sacrifice. These systems, tied closely with correspondence to nature and gods, allowed for a temple to be constructed in each neighborhood and chinampas to be constructed to self-sustain countless neighborhoods within the dense city of Tenochtitlan. It is important to recognize that the Aztec style of architecture was not singular nor unique to themselves. This civilization was created through conquest, just as how the Spanish came to conquer the Aztecs. But in contrast, the Aztecs adapted and refined their architecture to become a blend of these conquered civilizations. Aztecs allowed for the legacy of these civilizations to continue through architecture, and not become an erased society. The practice of rebuilding on top of existing structures, also known as a palimpsest approach to architecture, is still relevant to the discipline at large, where architects use this method to continue the legacy of a built structure.
When understanding how the Spanish came about conquering Tenochtitlan, as well as other Aztec city-states, the practice of the palimpsestic approach was not relevant. For the Spanish, architecture was used as a force to establish dominance over land. To forcefully situate buildings using European practices, and purposefully leave almost no traces of their existence. The act of rewriting the language and systems of the ground contributed to the plague of architecture that had erupted throughout colonization. What we see in modern day Mexico City, as well as other Latin American cities are an unbalanced fuse of indigenous architecture and Spanish architecture, which had come to conquer the ground for centuries to come. Buildings such as the National Palace, Constitutional Plaza, Chapultepec Castle are examples of these Spanish styles of architecture brought from Europe during the Baroque and Neo-classical eras, but inform nothing about those who came before them.
Colonialism, through architecture, is embedded into the idea of tabula rasa.
A blank slate.
A fresh start.
To forget and ignore the predecessors of a particular land, and embed a new language in it. One that becomes unfamiliar and foreign. Today Latin America is celebrated for its renounced and historical architecture, but at what expense? What architecture practices might have unfolded without colonial intervention? Colonialism continues to be relevant to the study of architecture, and it is necessary for the discipline to continue learning and exploring the impacts of it. In doing so, we can learn from what has been left for us as students as precedents, but also encourage us to think future-forward, and learn from the past and present simultaneously.