Topography and architecture

In most other parts of the world the spread of human settlement has often followed the contours of the landscape where the orientation and alignment ofstreets, buildings, and settlements follow the course of rivers, coastlines, and other natural features (Kostof 1991: 5357). Acknowledging the influence that topography has on the alignment and distribution of architecture, it is clear that local topography would have affected the arrangement of architectural features in Maya city centres. The topography that characterises the Maya region is largely diverse, encompassing volcanic mountains bordering the Pacific coast and lowland tropical rainforests (Mathews 1996: 2). As a result, “the flood plains of Copan and Quirigua; the sloping banks of the Pasion River; the hills along the Usumacinta River; the mountainous shelf of Palenque; the alluvial plains of Comalcalco and the flat Northern Yucatan plain all offered different challenges to the ancient builder” (Pollock 1965: 389-390). Terrain that is steep or hilly limits options for the placement, orientation, and design ofarchitectural features, diminishing the level of control that an architect and/or builder has over how a structure or a group of structures may be configured. Alternatively, in flat terrain where topographical constraints are less prevalent, one would expect the control over the design and configuration of architectural features to increase substantially.

The negative effect that topography might have on the distribution of architecture is often minimised by what has been described as “amendments to the landscape” (Kostof 1991: 55), where land was forced, through apro-cess of modification, to abide by the architectural plan imposed on it. These modifications have included the leveling and terracing of hills for either farming or the erection of buildings, the clearing of forests, reclamation of swamps, the diversion of rivers, and the construction of elevated platforms. One expression of higher architectonic control may be that a settlement appears less organic in form and more regimented in its overall configuration, although a direct correlation cannot be drawn between regular and irregular architectural planning and horizontal or undulating terrain. Kostof (1991: 55) reminds us that the banks of the Nile at Thebes “hosted a lively tangle of the residential quarters, while the tossed topography of the western slopes was the setting for formally planned units (the mortuary temples).”