Aztec Architecture: The Impossible City

Aztec architecture is simple but bold, elegant but powerful, with its mixed colors and symbols that help create a distinctive style. It refers to pre-Columbian architecture of the Aztec civilization. Instead of wrecking the old building that would add on to or built over it the old structure. While Aztec architecture doesn’t have many structures or “buildings” that are too well-known there is some that are still known and visited to this day. Aztecs also built pyramid temples for religion and worldview. Building them was one of the most important architectural duties for an Aztec. The pyramids were believed to represent mountains and fertility. Tenochtitlan, also known as, The Impossible City was a city-state located on an island of Lake …show more content…
But there were many more, such as the private ritual blood-letting, burning of copal (a tree resin), and the music of worship. This Aztec temple represented the Hill of Coatepec, where the Mexica’s believed Huitzilopochtli was born.”
The Aztecs had excellent builders and craftsmen that would use chisels, hard stone and obsidian blades for tools. They would use light volcanic stone extensively, it was strong. It was easy to break and the consistency of the substance with its color was very appealing. The substance was used for roofs and to fill in walls. Most of the materials the Aztecs were to use would be located within in the region they were but some would be acquired through trade.
Also, throughout Mexico Aztecs built elaborate stone structures which they got the designs from the ancestral Pueblos. These structures showed an extensive planned community. The immensity of the planned community had required well organized teams of workers. One of the planned communities is called West Ruin. The West Ruin is the largest known Great House, with approximately 400 rooms and 30 kivas. Kivas are chambers built entirely or partly underground but religious