03/13/2024

Mateo Celio-Martinez

ARCH History After 1400s

Belmont University

Module 2 Assignment

Throughout this module, we learned about countless different locations and countries,

and the way that their architecture contributed to the different architectural themes that we have

been learning since we started this class. The two examples that I have chosen to do are

Mexico/Mesoamerica and their impact on the plazas and Baroque Rome. I’ll hit on different

topics on how their visual forms and their overall design were used to communicate their social

values, and how—if any—the same design choices have similar meanings within both countries.

Plazas were one of the more important structures that were being built during the

Mesoamerican era, plazas are usually characterized as places for communities to hold gatherings,

to be able to come together, or places where, at this time, people could hold rituals that were both

sacred and held significance to these cultures. In the article, “Forming Spanish Towns in

Mesoamerican Culture: Chapter Two,” by the University of Texas Press, the author talks about

how plazas were always used within Mesoamerica towns, and they varied from sizes—but at the

end of the day, the more important ones were always placed in the middle of these towns, thus

being a common ground that gave a “physical and sacred place for hunter-gatherers traveling in

bands.” These locations were places that not only were for the whole community, or as others

would describe it—egalitarian, but they were from religious standpoints. Overall, the plazas that

were built in Mexico were quite different than those built during the Medieval European time,
but they did have similar purposes when it came to the point of why they were built. The text

claims: “In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance there still existed a vital and fiction use of the

town square for community life and also, in connection with this, a rapport between square and

surrounding public buildings.” To summarize, it states that plazas were practical, and the usages

that they had had symbolic meanings. Plazas were open spaces for each community and the head

of the town if you will—there was a point in time where said plazas had a source of water, and it

essentially became a water spring for Mesoamericans.

Now if you shift the gears towards Rome, we are brought to the ideals of Baroque

Architecture—baroque refers, to “an irregularly shaped pearl, was originally an 18th-century

French pejorative for an architecture that was seen as misshapen and willful, insufficiently

attentive to the authority of ancient classical precedent.” Overall, baroque architecture was

created to celebrate Catholicism and things like the princes along with the Pope. These structures

were not only for the rich and the mighty, but it was also seen more as something everyone could

appreciate, and in the time that meant the peasants and the princes were both in the same boat

understanding and loving the aesthetic appeal the baroque gave off. In the textbook Architecture

since the 1400s by Kathleen James-Chakraborty, she has a chapter called “Baroque Rome,” in

which she states: “The threat to Catholicism posed in the first half of the sixteenth century by the

Protestant Reformation helped provoke the creation of baroque Rome, its plazas, fountains,

streets, palaces, and the churches.” (Pg. 126) Essentially, Baroque architecture was used to

celebrate the wealth of the Catholic Church, but what also characterized it was the exploration of

new forms, light, and anything design worthy to change—it was a theatrical style, and it was

always predominant in churches, along with other places, to be able to showcase the wealth,

power, and beauty that they had for design.

 When it comes to comparing and contrasting the difference between these two structures

and the meaning they had within them—we can already talk about how baroque architecture is

something that was mainly used in churches—overall baroque is a type of design style that goes

into a building, while in Mesoamerica, and talking about the plazas, we have come to know that

plazas were something that was used in the center of a community. These are two different

structures with two different purposes, but within the differences that they had, we can find the

similarities, at the end of the day, these places were not hierarchical—sure, a baroque was built

to show the money and wealth, but it could still be shared within the community to be able to be

seen and explored by the community. Along with the plazas, plazas were used within the

community and a sacred area for the community.

Essentially baroque were monumental, they were built off money, to be seen, for people

to explore its beauty, and to be able to have a set design standpoint that set it aside from other

things, but a plaza is something more vernacular that had usages and was not only there for its

beauty. Plazas were used for the people and the neighbors around to be able to have something

traditional to be able to come together and worship their god. The main thing that can tie both

structures together is the fact that they can relate to each other over the fact that it is something

that has a religious storyline behind it. Mesoamericans used these areas for community and

sacred spaces to pray to their gods, while those in Rome built and influenced their baroque

within Catholic views to be able to spread their religion.

 Cited Sources:

James-Chakraborty, Kathleen. Architecture Since 1400, University of Minnesota Press,

2014. ProQuest Ebook Central,
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/belmont-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1791428.

Wagner, Logan, et al. Ancient Origins of the Mexican Plaza: From Primordial Sea to Public
Space, University of Texas Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/belmont-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3571776.