Photo By Luke Waack | SWG Deputy Public Affairs Officer, Carlos M. Gomez, hosts the U.S. Army Corps of...... read more read more
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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Galveston District (SWG), held its first of two observances for National Hispanic Heritage Month at district headquarters in Galveston, Texas, Oct. 3, 2024.
SWG Deputy Public Affairs Officer, Carlos M. Gomez, hosted the event to discuss the theme, “The Roots of Architecture and Engineering in Latino and Hispanic Culture.”
Gomez moderated the discussion with a panel featuring Engineering and Construction Division Project Engineer, Griselda Ahumada, Mega Projects Division (MPD) Project Manager, Reuben A. Trevino and MPD Program Manager (Engineering & Sciences), Enrique “Rick” Villagomez Jr.
Gomez welcomed dozens of audience members to the presentation and set the stage for the panel to talk about ancient engineering marvels of North and South America.
“Civilizations such as the Maya, the Zapotec, the Incas, the Aztecs, and the Olmecs were building structures and accomplishing engineering feats that seemed — at the time — impossible by the contemporary standards of the Spaniards and other Europeans who later arrived,” Gomez began. “Their structures have not only withstood the test of time but have also heavily influenced later societies in the realm of architectural design and engineering.”
Gomez asked the panel a series of questions about their thoughts and opinions related to ancient civilizations in the Americas before Spanish conquistadors arrived.
“In your opinion, what stands out the most about pre-Columbian engineering and architecture?”
“Their means and methods,” Ahumada began. “The civilizations, they developed societies with great builders, with astronomers, with mathematicians – engineers. How did they build these structures without all the metal tools and heavy equipment that are commonly used now?”
“The Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan on the center of a lake, the Mayans built temple pyramids as tall as 22 stories high in the cities of Tikal, Palenque, and Chichen Itza,” Ahumada continued. “Not to mention the Incas who built a fortress on top of peaks of the Andes, Machu Picchu in Peru.”
Trevino, who works on the Port Orange project, a levee system to mitigate coastal flooding said, “As a project manager, I was impressed because they figured out how to manage water flow to support their lives and to prevent disasters. They weren’t primitive at all; they were aware of their surroundings.”
“They were aware of the science of urban planning and how that benefitted them and their civilization,” Trevino continued. “The time and period we’re talking about and the knowledge they had and built and shared from generation to generation.”
What do the engineering accomplishments of these civilizations say about their society and their perceived “primitiveness” by the Spaniards?
Ahumada added, “I work with the A/E (Architecture & Engineering) section. We write task orders for the S2G (Sabine to Galveston Projects, www.swg.usace.army.mil/S2G) and we don’t do any design or building before we get some geotechnical investigations. I don’t read about any Geotech investigations they performed prior to building these temples and pyramids, and the fact that they’re still here, blows my mind.”
Which of these civilizations do you believe had the most advanced engineering and architecture practices?
Trevino chose the civilization which mastered megalithic (huge stone) construction on the steep peaks of the Andes.
“The Incas, in my opinion,” Trevino said. “The buildings and water infrastructure have stood the test of time. They had a more challenging landscape. They were able to clear the landscapes for agriculture and to build their structures. We still struggle with building structures that can withstand earthquakes.”
Villagomez cited the website “Wright Paleohydrology Institute, www.wpi.org” when commenting on the construction of Machu Picchu, and how it relates to current SWG Coastal Storm Risk Management projects.
“Here, at the Port of Orange, we have pump stations to pump water over levees when the system is closed, when we have a storm,” Villagomez said. “When the system isn’t protecting against a storm, we shut the pump stations off and we open the drainage structure, so the rainwater gets out. We have an interior drainage channel as part of our proposed plan to catch the sheet flood and direct it where we want it to go, to exit the system. The Incas did the same thing. They built channels in those terraces and wherever they were needed, to direct the water where they wanted it to go. I found that very interesting. They didn’t have gutter systems but they carved channels in granite to capture water running off their roofs to direct it so it wouldn’t affect their foundations.”
Villagomez also compared the immense amounts of water the Incas had to deal with at high elevation to the Texas coast.
“The city of Machu Pichu is located approximately 1.5 miles above sea level,” Villagomez elaborated. “Houston receives 50 inches of rain a year, Machu Pichu received 75 inches of rain a year. They were able to overcome all that and build a civilization utilizing their knowledge of hydrology, hydraulics, drainage, construction, utilizing what was there, the granite materials and they had a sense of how to build foundations.”
He didn’t pick one society over another, however.
“Mexico City is built on a lake. They had a different challenge than the Incas,” Villagomez continued. “I don’t believe any one of these civilizations was any smarter than another. They were able to accomplish what was necessary for them to establish an empire and all the structure required to maintain that civilization and it still stands today.”
Ahumada paid homage to the Mayans, who built roads, including one incredibly straight. Before contact with Europeans, they had the invented the concept of “0” in mathematics and an incredibly accurate astronomical calendar, she concluded.
How did you first learn about these societies and their influence?
Gomez said, “I have a Peruvian mother, so whether you wanted to or not, you were going to hear about the Incas. You were going to hear about the civilizations they built. So, I had that knowledge with me before I heard about them in sixth and seventh grade social studies.”
The panel members also shared how they learned about their own cultural heritages.
“I remember my grandfather telling us stories,” Trevino shared. “He used to work for TXDOT as a laborer building the highways back in the 70s. When I started learning about what he did, and how it served a purpose for us, when we’d go visit him, we literally drove along the highways he built. That connection showed me how it relates to our ancestries.”
Early in her life, Ahumada felt a strong connection to the engineering work done by her ancestors.
“I’d be doing math homework at home and my grandpa telling me about the Mayas and the Incas and how they invented the 0,” Ahumada said. “I remember being very proud of my people, Indians, Mexicanas, Hispanics, we contributed very significantly.”
Villagomez learned a lot while visiting family in Mexico.
“I had relatives in Monterrey, and we went to the big football stadium in the Aztec Stadium,” Villagomez said. “We went back to have dinner at my uncle’s house and my mother told us about their mascot, the Aztec. And below the mantle, my mother had a medallion of the Aztec calendar.”
To learn more about the continuing legacy of Hispanic contributions to architecture and engineering, visit www.swg.usace.army.mil.
| Date Taken: | 10.08.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.21.2024 10:22 |
| Story ID: | 482738 |
| Location: | GALVESTON, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 52 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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