Program: Itinerary Across an Ancient Landscape

In order to adapt the site of Uxmal and break it down in a manner that can be easily interpreted by a client or observer, there must be a specific context. Uxmal is a large site in the Yucatan Peninsula that used to be occupied by an ancient Maya civilization. Over the years, several factors have diminished the integrity of the site’s architecture. Natural weather conditions, war and man-made fires, and time have deteriorated Uxmal to a certain extent, but the construction of the architecture has lasted significantly throughout the ages, and that lends a lot of credibility to the Puuc style architecture that was utilized during the site’s construction.
One of the aspects of the area that has remained intact is the strong itinerary throughout the site. There is a low wall surrounding the site with a few thresholds which guides an occupant around the entire site and into it; from here, the occupant believes they are deciding their path on their own, when in reality the placement of certain buildings directs the occupant in certain directions. Yes, there are options for each person making their way through Uxmal (especially today, when they are just observing), but it is the juxtaposition of buildings creates intersecting pathways that almost forces people to move in a certain direction. From movement inside the site around buildings we transition to movement between specific buildings and the creation of thresholds as a result of space created by the edges between the two buildings.
One such area in particular is the space between the governor’s palace and the large group of buildings in the southern area of the site (south group). The large space between these buildings leads an occupant to explore the south group in its entirety as well as the governor’s palace. Both of these constructions expose the Puuc architecture style to the observer, and they are then clued into another aspect of the Maya civilization when they finally enter the different constructions. This is where the transition from large group to small group to individual spaces is made. The observer can pass a series of thresholds (the edge between two buildings, the entrance to a building, the doorway to a room) in order to digress into these spaces. This movement can be made in respect to specific aspects of Maya civilization – the Maya calendar can be used to show relative scale between these spaces because the size of this artifact (which represents a large part of Maya culture) can be related to the client, the space the client occupies, and then the greater context of the site of Uxmal which contains the specific construction that the client occupies.
This relationship between scales is important as it connects the occupant to the past civilization through the cultural ties of the artifact and constructions as well as from construction to construction. The artifact is the link that solidifies the connection between past, present, and future occupants within the Uxmal site.