Architecture Through the Ages, Part 4: The Aztecs and the Spaniards

Unlike Monte Alban or Teotihuacan, the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, wasn't abandoned to the wild at the end of that empire; instead, the Spaniards razed it and built the present Mexico City on the ruins.

It was originally thought that the city's Catholic cathedral was set directly atop the main Aztec temple, but a number of years ago archeologists discovered the temple just to the cathedral's northeast.

The Spanish destruction left nothing above street level but did make it clear that this pyramid had been expanded many, many times, each successive ruler simply adding a new layer on top to make it both wider and taller:




(That last picture shows "sacrificed" stone statues in between the layers, but yes, in places human sacrifices were also found.)

A nearby museum has modeled what it must have looked like, including the layers and reconstructing it to its full height:


Now, Spaniards have throughout history been quite happy to build extravagantly vulgar churches without any external incentive. But if they ever needed one, it was here; after conquering a civilization capable of building such monuments, they must have felt obliged to outdo it with their own.

As it turned out, the Mexico City cathedral wasn't much larger than the Aztec Templo Mayor, which would have risen up to about the height of the cathedral's roof:


But of course, European building techniques allowed for far grander interiors than any American culture was able to achieve, not to mention the Spanish taste for gold and rococo:



Still, in some ways the cathedral feels like the next step in a sequence rather than a sharp break in it.