Teotihuacan: searching for the perfect dialogue between city and nature

Abstract

Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities of antiquity and the Teotihuacan culture one of the most important of pre-Columbian America. This essay argues for a new understanding of the city and its territory. Through the study of the form of the city and its relationship with the natural environment, Teotihuacan’s iconography and the comparison with other cultures, the following pages respond to some of the questions that still surround Teotihuacan culture arguing that, in Teotihuacan, the symbiosis of city and nature was worshiped. Teotihuacan seems to have been conceived as an “ideal city”; and the city itself and its relationship with its natural environment played a critical role in the spiritual, cultural and political identity of the new society that was created in Teotihuacan. In some sort of social consensus, the Teotihuacanos worked together to establish a perfect dialogue, a balance between the city they built and the sacred environment that surrounded it.