ABSTRACT
The architecture of the Pueblos of New Mexico achieves a certain equipoise in relation to the surrounding natural setting. Western civilization has been premised on this concept of freedom from nature ever since. It is a concept that is intrinsic to our Western world view and a concept that is fundamentally different from the world view represented by the Pueblo architecture of New Mexico, which conforms to the land in which it is built and becomes a part of it. Pueblo architecture provides a glimpse at a different premise upon which to base the fundamental relationship between man and nature. According to Alfonso Ortiz, a world view provides a people with a structure of reality; it defines, classifies and orders the really real in the universe, in their world and society. A bird's-eye view of the United States reveals a giant grid imposed on the natural landscape by the early surveyors carrying out the mandate of the Continental Congress.
