Professor Stella Nair will be delivering a hybrid talk entitled “The Impermanence of Inca Architecture” at Harvard University on Friday, April 5, 2024, at 4:00pm.
“One material has come to define Inca architecture —stone. The Inca used this enduring material as part of their built environment, and it played a critical role in helping to validate their rule. For example, the Inca shaped stone in ways that seemed to root the Inca in time and space, and thus convey messages of authority and belonging. Over the centuries, Inca stones have captured the modern imagination, such that people think of sites like Machu Picchu and its enduring lithic remains as representing the totality of the Inca built environment. The result is a very narrow view of Inca architecture. In this paper, Nair examines news way of looking at this Indigenous building tradition; ones that move beyond stone and the enduring by focusing on a range of other materials and the ephemeral. In doing so a vastly different picture of Inca architecture emerges.”
For more information on the event and to attend via Zoom, please click here.
