Cahokia

Cahokia Mounds National Historic Site is what remains of an ancient indigenous city in the Mississipi flood plain. Of the 120 or so mounds that were originally built, 80 remain.

 

 Map from "Investigations in the Cahokia Site Grand Plaza", by George R. Holley, Rinita A. Dalan, and Philip A. Smith from American Antiquity, Vol. 58, No. 2

 

 Monk's Mound, Cahokia. Image credit: Wikipedia.

According to Wikipedia, the Grand Plaza is an engineered plain, a plateau created from undulating terrain. It is described as a place for large ceremonies and gatherings, as well as for ritual games. This is apparent in the illustration below of Cahokia at its peak:

 

 Image credit: www.sacred-destinations.com

What is striking to me is the similarity of my scheme for a new Lamport Stadium, based on a field and a mountain, to the relationship between Monk’s Mound at Cahokia and the Grand Plaza. A “mountain” of stacked parking and sport courts is faced with strips of  gardens, skylights, water features, and bleacher seating; a ramp winds its way from its peak to the field at its base.

 

A strong sense of ritual is implied by the axes generated by the geometry of the pitch and mountain typology. This recalls a Japanese notion of public space, one that is not a defined entity with hard borders, but rather a time-oriented axes, intimately bound up with sacred festivals (1). Fred Thompson, in Ritual and Space, wrote:

Like space in a Japanese house, then, exterior space is sequential: it must be experienced through participation, and its parts must be understood in relation to the elusive whole. (10)