Inca Architecture

Inca Architecture is the first book devoted entirely to the remarkable buildings of Tawantinsuyu, the Inca state. Most treatments of Andean technology have either entirely ignored the architectural dimension or addressed it superficially. Since the authors of this volume are an archaeological historian and a cultural anthropologist, they bring unique and necessary perspectives to the study of pre-Columbian monumental architecture and its sociocultural components. Gasparini and Margolies note distinctive features and prevalent patterns in the architecture, analyze the probable function of various structures, discuss materials and technology, and show how the buildings reflected the Inca way of life. By making use of sixteenth-century chroniclers’ accounts as well as their own hypotheses based on extant ruins, they attempt to reconstruct exactly how the buildings looked. Their descriptions are enhanced by drawings, photographs, and detailed plans with precise measurements. Separate chapters are devoted to technical and formal antecedents, urban settlements, domestic structures (generally ignored in architectural analyses), the architecture of power (constructions built for collective, administrative, military, and religious purposes), and technical and aesthetic problems. Beginning with the structures of Tiwanaku, the authors place the achievements of the Incas in the context of the Andean building tradition that preceded them, as well as in the context of contemporaneous societies. In addition to such well-known sites as Cuzco and Machu Picchu, Gasparini and Margolies highlight other important but less famous settlements: Pikillaqta, Ollantaytambo, Huánuco Pampa, Willka Waman, and Tambo Colorado.