Tablados: Mayan ephemeral vernacular architecture

Abstract

The vernacular architecture of the Maya of the Yucatán Peninsula, as represented by the Mayan house, is recognized not only for the impact Mayan culture has had recently, but also for its history. This building, which continues as housing nowadays, began in the Mesoamerican period, during which it was reproduced in the ornamentation and arches of monumental architecture. Building knowledge, preserved for centuries in the construction of the Mayan house, was also used in the creation of a new structure called a tablado, which came into being during the process of the appropriation of bullfighting by the Maya of the Yucatán Peninsula and their assigning it meanings from their own world view. This paper describes a portion of the results of a research project that proposes a way of looking at this vernacular expression in the states of Campeche and Yucatán in Mexico.