Rules · Use · Stairs · Façades
Treat the stepped pyramid as a platform whose purpose is to lift a small temple towards the sky, reached by a single steep stair on its principal face; enlarge it by building a new shell over the old.
Unlike the Egyptian pyramid, which is a sealed tomb, the Mesoamerican pyramid is a stage. Rites were performed in the temple on top and on the stair in full view of the plaza below. Many pyramids enclose earlier ones: rulers enlarged the monuments of their predecessors by building over them, so that excavators have found the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan to consist of seven successive shells.
Some Maya pyramids were also tombs. Temple I at Tikal covers the burial of the ruler Jasaw Chan K’awiil I, and the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque that of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, but even there the temple on the summit remained the point of the building.
Build each stage of a platform as a sloping talud surmounted by a vertical tablero: a rectangular panel framed by a projecting border and cantilevered slightly over the slope below; repeat the pair at every stage.
Teotihuacan: tablero taller than talud (often ≈ 1½–2 × its height)
To make a small temple dominate the skyline, build a tall crest of masonry on its roof, set over the heavy rear wall and pierced with openings to lighten it; model it in painted stucco with the figure of the ruler or god.
Put the temples and their plazas at the centre of the town; round them the houses of the lords and priests, then those of the leading people, and the houses of the common people at the outskirts.
At the end of each katun of twenty years, build a plaza with two flat-topped pyramids facing east and west, each with four stairs, a walled court on the north for the king’s stela and altar, and a range of nine doorways on the south.
Build a household as three or four houses on low platforms round a small patio, with the family’s shrine, over the ancestors’ graves, on the east side.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The pyramid is a platform for a temple”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/platform-temple. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.