● ■ Stewarding Chinampas
researched during Ana María Durán Calisto’s seminar Territorial Cities of Pre-Colonial America in 2020
and during Anthony Acciavatti’s seminar The City Before and After the Tubewell in 2021
field research conducted during the George Nelson Fellowship at Yale School of Architecture in 2021
and published in POOL (UCLA) in 2022
The city of Tenochtitlan experienced heavy flooding, which served as a precondition for much of the basin’s agricultural productivity. Chinampas de laguna adentro, a technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture, were located in freshwater lakes such as the Southern Lakes—Lake Xochimilco and Lake Chalco. These lakes were fed by freshwater springs, where many chinampa towns emerged.
Pre-Aztec peoples developed the Southern Lakes into agricultural and domestic zones, which were later adopted by the Aztec state. The state integrated these southern chinampas into the urban fabric of Tenochtitlan by building infrastructure such as causeways and dams, contributing to the expansion of the urban landscape.
The relationship between land and water was deeply spiritual, as these elements were in constant flux. The rain god Tlaloc was central to this dynamic, cultivating the conditions necessary for sustenance. Each chinampa measured approximately 3.75 meters in width and was constructed by staking out rectangular beds, layering lake mud and compost, and planting fast-growing ahuejotes (willow trees) along the edges to reduce erosion.
The careful balance between soil and water helped mitigate frost by raising crop and air temperatures through heat transfer from the canals at night and increasing humidity. A 1:1 land-to-water ratio supported nutrient replacement and enabled the cultivation of a wide variety of vegetables and other crops. It also sustained a diverse range of food sources such as insects, amphibians, fish, birds, aquatic plants, and other lacustrine fauna.
Compost was burned to heat water for the temazcal (traditional steam bath), and waste was carefully managed: urine was stored and sold for use in dyeing textiles, while solid waste was composted for use in the chinampas. This agricultural system was dynamic and adapted to seasonal changes and flooding. During the dry season, large-scale water management systems were essential to keep the chinampas irrigated.
Depictions of material infrastructure often reflect poetic imagination and aspiration, rendering infrastructure’s political, economic, and spiritual meanings as “formed, reformed, and performed.” The human experience of—and interaction with—water infrastructure, encompassing various perceptions and interpretations of the relationship between land and water, surface and subsurface, can be understood through changing patterns of representation. These representations inscribe evolving relations and narrate shifts in systems of land tenure, subdivision, and accessibility.
The imaginative and aspirational transition from the communal land ownership practices of the pre-Columbian Triple Alliance calpulli to the colonial-era ejido systems—indigenous practices under state supervision—can be traced through an analysis of the media that visualize and narrate water infrastructure in Tenochtitlán.
Applying the methods outlined in Bruno Latour’s "Visualisation and Cognition: Drawing Things Together," these images are examined through the processes of reshuffling, recombining, and superimposing narratives. This approach leverages the mobility, immutability, flatness, scale, modifiability, and reproducibility of visual representations to uncover the embodied experiences of infrastructure.
By analyzing these works, we gain insight into how the relationship between land and water—surface and subsurface—shaped the evolution of Tenochtitlán/Mexico City’s infrastructure, both in its material forms and its labor dynamics.