The Timeless Lesson of Nezahualcóyotl Landscape Architecture

Discover with Miguel A. Medina one of the brightest kings of ancient Mexico, managed to save his people from famine through the implementation of irrigation canals in The Timeless Lesson of Landscape Architecture by Nezahualcóyotl.

In the Basin of Mexico, where it is today Mexico City; in the fifteenth century, the most brilliant of the ancient Mexican kings, Nezahualcoyotl Acolmiztli, made an intervention at 30000 hectares of its territory enabling the landscape to produce food to solve the hunger of his people caused by a prolonged drought of seven years.

The site is now a cultural landscape of great importance whose study is an enriching lesson in landscape architecture, sustainable development and environmental planning.

Thanks to the ancient king Nezahualcoyotl, the basin of México is now a cultural landscape of great importance whose study is an enriching lesson in landscape architecture, sustainable development and environmental planning.

In addition to the unique beauty that this place treasures, it shows human thoughts and actions that underpin the sociopolitical, sociocultural, socio environmental and economic processes that lead to sustainability: after five hundred and sixty years, 40% of that land is still cultivated and the place is, without a doubt, heraldry of the culture of ancient Mexico.

I: Cabal del Caño Quebrado D: Manantial de Texapo en el sistema de regadío sur / L: Caño Quebrado embankment R: Texapo spring water
Fotografía / Photography: Michael Calderwood, Propiedad de Medina Arquitectos

This region consists of long ridges of piedmont, short valleys, and in that time, a long narrow strip of plain lake. The soils are shallow, dominates the horizon B of basic mineral and vegetation that occurs along the altitudinal gradient includes riparian plants and Halophytes in the plain, grassland, xerophytic scrub and weeds in the foothills and forests of Juniperus, Cupressus, Quercus, Pinus and Abies in the mountains.

The place we know today was the result of several circumstances and decisions:

During the years 1447 to 1453 AD, had an untimely frost followed by a prolonged drought that dried to two thousand square kilometers of lakes and disabled the crops leaving behind a natural catastrophic event that nearly wiped out the population of 300,000 inhabitants.

Nezahualcóyotl’s decision to solve the famine was to locate springs in the high mountains of the eastern basin and channel the water to his city by creating three irrigation systems to produce food. This decision marked a radical change in the natural landscape of the region and, above all, in the lives of the inhabitants of his domain and the entire Basin.

Terrazas del sistema de regadío sur cultivadas en el siglo XXI / Terraces of the Southern system cultivated in the 21st century
Fotografía / Photography: Guillermo Kahlo, Propiedad de Medina Arquitectos

To channel water from the springs located at an altitude of 2,600 meters to the plateau at 2,200 meters, channels were carved into the rocky surface of the mountains, descending along the gradient, following the contour lines, surrounding the hilltops, and crossing the fords with embankments over which stone canals were built. The path of the channels had a constant slope of 2.8%. The water flow was regulated by increasing or decreasing the width of the channel and varying its depth to avoid turbulence. In addition, secondary and tertiary distribution channels branched off from the main ones, with widths ranging from 50 to 2.5 centimeters.

Simultaneously with the construction of canals were built hundreds of thousands of square miles of stone walls to contain about one hundred and fifty million cubic meters of fertile soil formed by silt dredged from the bottom of the dry creeks mixed with humus from the montane forests.

I: Presa antigua en el sistema de regadío sur D: Canales tallados en la roca / L: Ancient dam in the southern irrigation system R: Channels carved into the rock
Fotografía / Photography: Michael Calderwood, Propiedad de Medina Arquitectos

Nezahualcoyotl awarded the construction of the channels through an appropriate tax card, then entrusted its maintenance and management of water supply to the entire region as the Nahuatl agricultural calendar of 260 days per year.

Canal doméstico en el sistema de regadío sur / Domestic canal in the southern irrigation system
Fotografía / Photography: Michael Calderwood, Propiedad de Medina Arquitectos

As a final note, I will say that today it is pertinent for me to review the work of Nezahualcoyotl because in recent years I have seen a growth in the work of landscape architecture, professional and academic, with a tendency towards the naive reproduction of “successful” iconographic models. Which has led me to disseminate the work of Nezahualcoyotl as an expression of the thought and work of a genius who could today be an environmental planner and landscape architect of excellence. From which we can learn a great lesson.

Vista de la región septentrional del Acolhuacan / View of the northern region of the Acolhuacan
Fotografía / Photography: Michael Calderwood, Propiedad de Medina Arquitectos