Chacoesque: Great Pueblo Architecture Outside Chaco Canyon

Description

Authors: Flint, Richard and Flint, Shirley

Publisher: Century Graphics

Pub Date: 1989

Binding: Paperback (wire bound)

Condition: Fair.  Wire binding tight, but many of the wires are slightly crooked (age and storage issue.  This is an odd sized volume, with a wire binding).  No marks, folds.  All corners at wire binding edges, front and rear, are worn, but not torn.  Page 3 verso edge has an approx. 1/16″ chip.  Sticker shadow on rear cover.  Horizontal format.  Edge and corner wear.

Notes:  Not really a reading volume, more reference.  What makes a pueblo Chacoesque?  1)  Its formal geometry–long straight walls and smooth uninterrupted curves, typically in “E”, “U”, “L” shapes and rectangles; 2) Large scale planning–building in multi-room increments, aligned with existing architecture; 3) Masonry–typically stone, not adobe, in various course patterns, and super thick, often two feet and sometimes more; 4) Size.  They’re large, some covering more than an acre.  Not all (Chimney Rock Pueblo, e.g.), but most: 5)  Blocked-in round rooms.  Round structures often surrounded by rectilinear building.  Kiva implies ceremony.  “Round room” (a Lekson term) can be used for anything; 6) Towers and/or great kivas.  Specialized round rooms, often with ceremonial functions, and sometimes surrounded by rectilinear building; and 7) Roads and “community halos”.  Chaco roads are the primary example, but all the pueblos cited here have smaller, adjacent clusters of buildings, and act as a central locus.  No photographs.  Locations, sizes, construction dates, tree-ring dates, number of rooms, excavation and preservation history, principal bibliographical reference, notes, and a diagram of the building.