 by Judy Theodorson The Peruvian Andes are stunning: folds of steep mountains draped in tropical foliage and dotted with surprisingly intact remains of the Inca world. I was on the Inca Trail, an ancient footpath, a necklace studded with jewels known as “the Hanging Cities.” It culminates with the most famous, if not the most precious, of these cities, Machu Picchu. Each ruin, or marca, is unique—the siting, the apparent function, the formal and spatial organization—yet they are all of the same family, held together by common architectural language, materials, and craft. And each is absolutely extraordinary. Hobbling along the trail, I pondered the parade of visual wonders. Everyone knows the Incas were expert stonemasons; the revelation is that they were such masterful designers. There is much to learn here. The Incas were the Romans of South America. Their orderly empire extended from Ecuador to Chile, from the Andes to the Pacific, over mountains and forests and desert. In this vast area they assimilated a collection of disparate cultures. As lands were absorbed into the domain, architects and engineers were dispatched to unify the empire with roads and water, urbanism and architecture. The significant work was completed in an unbelievably short time, about 80 years. In 1532, Pizarro swiftly conquered, razing much of the Incan architecture. However, the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu were unknown to the Spanish and thus were virtually untouched when discovered early this century.  This journey is a pilgrimage for an architect. For me it was dreamy: breathtaking vistas, terraces, and public rooms carved into the landscape, buildings perched and nested in impossible places, sculptural stonework. Often, most memorably at Machu Picchu, clouds danced about teasingly, veiling the whole yet revealing glimpses of details. And so I saw a way to frame my thoughts. By focusing on the pieces, the architectural principles, I would analyze and describe the power of this place. Sketchbook in hand, I looked for the elements of composition we teach beginning architecture students: line, point, solid and void, rhythm, symmetry and asymmetry, repetition, hierarchy, transition. I found the Incas applied these design basics in the development of a simple formal language and a set of patterns or rules. From there, they deferred to the particularities of the topography, taking every advantage of aesthetic and ritualistic opportunities. In form and in space, the built environment poetically merged with the landscape. Perhaps most significantly, they systematically applied the basic elements of design and language in the creation of complex urban interventions. Suddenly the essence of the whole, so mystifying at first, became coherent through the understanding of elemental ideas.  "Machu Picchu not only epitomizes the piercing excitement of architectural experience, but also in the interaction of man and his environment provides a fleeting glimpse of some elemental reality." |