0388 - Preparing for excavating Tomb 4 at Perdigões

Click on the image to enlarge

To prepare the excavation of Tomb 4 at Perdigões Era team did some more geophysics to improve the available image. Here you may compare the previous image (on the left) of the monument with the new one (on the right, over the previous one). The difference is remarkable and a lot of useful information about the architecture is provided.

We will starting to adopt this procedure to other specific areas of the enclosures to get more detailed information.

0363 - Astronomic orientation of gates: also documented in Spain

Orientation of NE gate at Camino de las Yeseras (After Liesau 2013-2104).

The cosmological and astronomic bond of ditched enclosures architectures in Iberia was first addressed in Portugal (Valera 2008; Valera, Becker 2011, Valera 2013). In the context of that research, it was noted that several ditched enclosures present topographical locations towards East and that several of them have their gates aligned with the solstices and/or equinoxes at sunrise and/or sunset. Those are the cases of Perdigões, Santa Vitória, Outeiro Alto 2, Xancra or Bela Vista 5 (see issues in the lateral bar).

These perspectives and analysis have now also been developed for a ditched enclosure in Central Iberia. At Camino de las Yeseras a NE gate seems to be orientated to the Summer solstice at sunrise, and the sections of the ditches that define that entrance show evidences of intentional depositions interpreted as foundation rituals (Liesau et al., 2013-2014).

Something that will become more frequent, once we have access to more complete plans of enclosures and have in mind that architecture tends to be holistic

.

Bibliographic Referece:

Liesau, C.; Vega, J., Daza, A.,  Rios, P., Menduiña, R., Blasco, C. (2013-2014), Manifestaciones simbólicas en el acceso Noreste del Recinto 4 de Foso en Camino de las Yeseras (San Fernando de Henares, Madrid), SALDVIE, 13-14: 53-69. 

Valera, A.C., (2008), “Mapeando o Cosmos. Uma abordagem cognitiva aos recintos da Pré-História Recente”, Era Arqueologia, 8, Lisboa, p.112-127.

Valera, A.C. e Becker, H. (2011), “Cosmologia e recintos de fossos da Pré-História Recente: resultados da prospecção geofísica em Xancra (Cuba, Beja)”, Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 7, Lisboa, NIA-ERA Arqueologia, p.23-32

Valera, António Carlos (2013), “Breve apontamento sobre a dimensão cosmogónica dos recintos de fossos da Pré-História Recente no Interior Alentejano”, Cadernos do Endovélico, Nº1, Colibri/CMA, p.51-63

0268 – Transition moments

Transition is always a moment celebrated by cultures (and not just human cultures). Transition between life and death, between childhood and adult life, between seasons, between day and night, etc. All generate particular culture behaviors, rituals, prescriptions.

Even architecture responds to these moments of transition. That is the case of many ditched enclosures by having their gates orientated to important sun annual events, such as solstices and equinoxes. In this case, we have a drawing of the landscape perspective of the sunset at the equinoxes, seen through the western gate of Bela Vista 5 enclosure (Beja, South Portugal).

0267 – Towers and huts

Late central towers at Porto das Carretas (left); stone huts at Mercador (up right); late central stone hut at Monte do Tosco 1 (down right). See how dimensions are quite similar.

            There are some Portuguese walled enclosures that, according to their excavators, present central towers in the latest phases when the wall are no longer functioning and enclosing. That is the case of Monte da Tumba, S. Pedro or Porto das Carretas. In general, these structures just present some rows of stones, are circular and tend to date from the Late Chalcolithic (some associated to Bell Beaker).

            However, it is never clearly explained why they are interpreted as towers. In fact, similar structures, with the same width and high and with identical diameters, are interpreted as huts. That is the case of the two huts of Mercador. They have the same dimensions of the so called towers of Porto das Carretas, they are from the same general period as the later, they dist just 1,5kms and they even are united by a short wall like the structures at Porto das Carretas. So structurally, how can we distinguish the base of a stone hut from the base of a stone tower, when we do not have enough information to estimate the vertical development of the structure?

            The larger hut at Mercador has a central post hole. But a two floors tower would probably have one also. And not all structures considered huts present internal post holes. At Mercador or Monte do Tosco, huts present internal fire places and areas of storage. But couldn’t towers present them also. During the Late Chalcolithic, what could be inside a hut that couldn´t be inside a tower? So, internal context also doesn’t help much in establishing a difference.

            So, in what bases do we call towers to the late central structures in Porto das Carretas, S. Pedro or Monte da Tumba? Or are they really stone huts, associated to late occupations of these sites? We need criteria and solid evidence to name these structures.

0257 – Long term ideas expressed in Perdigões architecture: a goal for 2014 campaign.

Next Monday the 2014 campaign of excavations (the 15^th of the research program) will start at Perdigões enclosure. You will be able to follow the results here.

One of the goals of this year is to start sampling ditch 10, in an area where it seems to be a gate (in the geophysics image). If it is confirmed, it should be noticed that the gate would be aligned with gate 4 in the outside enclosures. And that is very interesting for the interpretation of the architectonic dynamics in Perdigões, namely to the issue of how some previous structures conditioned the later and to the idea that, in Perdigões, there are long term ideological conditions that are imbedded in the architecture of enclosures. Something that I have been pointing out for some time now. 

0253 – Evaluating the effort 2

At Perdigões we have recorded 12 ditches. Seven of them were already surveyed in a section. Of course that we do not know if the dimensions of those sections “speak” for the entire perimeter of the ditches. We have evidence from other sites that a ditch volume and shape may change a lot along its perimeter. And Perdigões is not an exception. Ditch 12, the only one surveyed in two different areas, has a different shape and a different filling in survey 1 of Sector Q and in survey 2 of the same sector.

That shows us that we cannot generalize to a whole ditch what we observe in one section. But does not imply that, in general terms, we cannot try to approach the general picture.

For instance, Dicth 1 at Perdigões is a long one: it has a perimeter of almost 1,5 km. It was surveyed in a section near Gate 1, first by the ERA team and in the last few years by University of Málaga team (that is collaboration in the General Program of Research of Perdigões). It showed a “V” shape, with about 3 m deep and 7 to 9 meters wide. It allow us to calculate a volume for a one meter section: 9.61 m3. Multiplying this volume by the perimeter we get a volume of 14232 m3 and using the pattern wait of a m3 of diorite (around 2600 Kg) we have 37 000 tons of rock extracted, just for Ditch 1.

This can gives us an idea of the amount of work involved in Perdigões through its living time. And more interesting: once again, where is that amount of bedrock?

Ah! And do not forget that we have evidences of practices of re-cutting of some ditches after their first filling process. And that enlarges the amount of work that we can calculate to the recorded structures.

These big enclosures were huge public enterprises.

0252 - Evaluating the effort 1

Outeiro Alto 2 is a small ditched enclosure. It has just one ditch with a perimeter of 101m. If the size of the ditch is regular (as the two opposite surveys suggest) it will have a volume of 254 m3, corresponding to 406 tons of extracted rock (1600kg per 1m3, as average for limestone rock). That rock is not in the site: not outside the ditch and not inside the ditch (as it would be expected if there was a bank built with the extracted material). This is a common situation in Portuguese Ditched Enclosures, big or small.

0193 – Solstice day

Today is the Summer solstice.

The inner enclosure of Santa Vitória is one of the Portuguese ditched enclosures that had the gate (the only gate) aligned with the sunrise in this day. It must have been a special day there, some 4500 years ago.

0192 – Enclosures and cromlechs

Cromlech of Almendres, near Évora

There are several parallels that can be established between ditched enclosures and cromlechs in South Portugal Late Neolithic. Not just some cromlechs show a topographical implantation and relations with the landscape similar to several ditched enclosures, like being in a slope orientated to East and with relation to sun events (like Vale Maria do Meio or Almendres), but others seem to be in close spatial relation with ditched enclosures. That can be seen at Torrão and Perdigões.

Neolithic Perdigões: the strong black lines mark the known (at the moment) Neolithic structures.

In Torrão the cromlech is just outside the Late Neolithic ditch and in Perdigões is a couple of hundred meters to the East of the early ditches also dated from Late Neolithic. In both sites there aren´t yet empirical evidences that directly connect the enclosures to the cromlechs, but being totally contemporary or not, the general idea that we get from the location and orientation of several Neolithic cromlechs and ditched enclosures, and from the proximity that some of them present, is that there is an ideological connection between them and that they, being different, respond to same shared general principles.

There seems to be a strong link between some ditched enclosures and some megalithic structures in Alentejo, as complementary means of expressing and organizing Neolithic world views and landscapes.

We have several Neolithic cromlechs in the region. Besides Torrão and Perdigões, I wonder how many have an unrevealed ditched enclosure nearby.

0189 - The (i)logic ditches

Sometimes it is not easy to understand the options of prehistoric people. In fact I would say that is not just sometimes. But that depends on the ability that we have to dialogue “with them”.

For instance, let’s look at a specific situation at Perdigões.

Why ditch 7, opened after ditch 8, is more concentric to previous ditch 6 than ditch 8? Why ditch 7 develops a path that is different but, in a specific area, cuts (and probably uses) the previous ditch 8? Why are they so close to each other in certain areas and so apart in others?

 

 

Modern functional explanations fail to answer these questions. Not because they are just “functional” explanations, but, perhaps, because they are just too simplistic.

That is the amazing thing about the plans provided by geophysics. If we look carefully to the plans we find a lot “food for thought” about the nature of enclosures. “Food” that might help us to make conscience of the bizarre that the “definitive discourse” keeps missing.

 

 

0179 - Ditch Sections

Here are some ditch sections from Portuguese enclosures. Diversity is the word. Diversity of shapes and of sizes. Even in the same site. Even in the same ditch.

Image taken from Valera, A.C. (in press), “Recintos de fossos da Pré-História Recente em Portugal: investigação, discursos, salvaguarda e divulgação”, Almadan, 18, CAA.

0178 – Adapting and incorporating

That seems to be a significant difference between walled and ditched enclosures in Portugal.

Tor in the top of a hill used to built Castro de Santiago during Chalcolithic

Naturally, as argued before (for instance here), no building is performed in an insignificant space. Everything built is in dialogue with a local landscape, with its meanings, visibilities, resources, particularities. And all of those previous conditions are, in one way or another, incorporated in the building.

But when we compare walled and ditched enclosures we can observe that the former tend to present a great variety of forms of adaptation and incorporation of previous elements of the landscape, while the ditched enclosures mainly reflect a dialogue with topography, geology and visibility conditions.

Rocks, tors or cliffs, are usually incorporated as part of the structures that enclose. Although in other parts of Europe we can see that also in ditched enclosures (like the French “enceinte à éperon”), so far those solutions were not identified in Portuguese ditched enclosures.

Large wall from rock to rock that defines the inner enclosure at Castro de Santiago.

In terms of the architectonic features, walled enclosures seem to use the available natural conditions in a different way.  Perhaps one of the reasons is that the design, the layout, was less significant than the ones presented by ditched enclosures and answered to different goals.

Plan of the several walled structures that, together with the previous rocks, define Castro de Santiago enclosure.

0173 – Why are they where they are?

The huge tor of Fraga da Pena used to built a double enclosure in the late third millennium BC. Here seen from the valley.

The approach to Architecture that interests me is based on an anthropological perspective of space, where, in human construction, natural and artificial are cast, as also proposed by ecological approaches. Thinking architectures is thinking their contexts, the global social environment from which they emerge and simultaneously help to fabricate: sets of actions, meanings and materiality through which the human dwelling of time and space occurs. It reflects experiences and perceptions of space; it is relative to technological stages and options; satisfies specific practical needs while expresses and acts over ascetics, ideologies and current social relations; functions as a communication device of explicit and implicit meanings.

It does so through the physical structures but also through the ways space is organized and through associated activities. Corresponds to the construction of active scenarios, conditioned (because they transport tradition and respond to social needs) and conditioning (because they actively interfere in social relations, enabling and conforming them), in the context of human agency in a given time and space.

            Architecture inevitably involves a space organization through the imposing of meanings and by doing so goes further than the simple notions of occupation and construction. Furthermore, it deals in a meaningful way with forms but also with the emptiness, with the positive and with the negative, with the added features but also with the previous categorized “natural” elements of a given space.

In this sense, as a process of building and organizing meaningful spaces, Architecture is not linked, in a restrictive way, to the human material construction. In an Anthropological perspective there is no undifferentiated space in human dwelling. Space is always categorized, classified, and only the ways of doing so are contingent. Before interfere through construction, man architects the space using its elements, the experiences and perceptions that they provide and the associated meanings. When building Man tends to use these previous features with their symbolic meanings and associated experiences, incorporating them as architectonic elements in the space organization.

There is no architecture made over an empty and insignificant neutral space. To understand a “building” implies to understand the previous meaningful place where it was built.  Being that a granitic tor (as Fraga da Pena), a natural amphitheatre (as Perdigões) or the particular place where stands the modern Centro Cultural de Belém (in Lisbon). 

0168 – About tors used to built enclosures

Fraga da Pena (Fornos de Algodres) walled enclosure.

In an Anthropological perspective there is no undifferentiated space in human dwelling. Space is always categorized, classified, and only the ways of doing so are contingent.

Before interfere through construction, man architects the space using its elements, the experiences and perceptions that they provide and the associated meanings.

Frequently, Architecture is a simple recognition and categorization of previous natural forms that are connected to stories, myths, and transformed in active storage of memories and experiences.

In this context, the tors volume and shape might be associated to sculptures or architectures of ancient times, mythic times, ancestral or divine. We can hardly assume that, in Prehistory, these elements were taken as “natural elements”, explained by tectonic and differential erosion.  

On the contrary. They probably had associated legends that contributed to the entity of the place, making it a meaningful mark in the landscape, through which space was organized and experienced.

The building of this kind of enclosures is not just a matter of building walls using a favorable previous situation. Walls and tor are integrated in a building where the previous meaning of the natural feature, not conceived as so, certainly had a main symbolic role. The choosing of the place and the decision of building an enclosure there hardly can be understood if we do not consider the meaning and symbolic power of these (for us) natural formations. Even if we cannot precise the specificities of that meaning and power, not consider them will result in a poor interpretation and explanation, that will reflect us more than them.  

0160 – Bastions, towers, huts: perceptions of walled enclosures structures

It is a fact that a significant number of walled and ditched enclosures have plans that tend to circularity and that angles are rare. Well, if this statement is a rule for ditched enclosures, for walled ones it has some exceptions.

In fact, there are some walled enclosures that present designs made by strait sections of walls that connect forming open angles, where we usually find circular constructions that in Portuguese archaeological literature are immediately interpreted as bastions or towers. 

One of the classic sites is Pedra do Ouro (Lisbon district) walled enclosure. But more recently, walled enclosures with a polygonal tendency have been recorded in Alentejo, namely Porto das Carretas in Mourão municipality and São Pedro in Redondo Municipality, following designs also suggested in some sites of south Spain, like Cerro de los Vientos de La Zarcita or Campos.

 Plans of São Pedro (Mataloto, 2010) and Porto das Carretas (Silva e Soares, 2002). Click to enlarge.

This rupture with circularity is also seen in some French walled enclosures, like Boussargues. But here some new perspectives were developed that I think it would be interesting for Iberian archaeologist to consider and some Spanish colleagues have done just so (inclusively for the well known forts of Los Millares). At Boussargues, the round structures at the angles of the walls were taken as previous constructions. It was later, in a second phase of construction, that they were united by sections of strait walls (Colomer, et al. 1990), like dots united by lines in a paper. In this case, the strait design of the walls seems to be induced by the previous circular structures (that are not bastions or towers, but households), generating a more polygonal shape. This is a quite different process from building an enclosure that was planned ahead and it raises a lot of questions about the way some archaeological structures have been interpreted in Iberia.  

Boussargues (Calomer, et al, 1990 adapted)

If we look to the published plans of Porto das Carretas and São Pedro we can see that in several situations the areas of the angles and the connections to the so called bastions or towers are quite destroyed. Sometimes stratigraphic relations between the structures cannot be observed and interpretation is relying on presumptions.

Well, it seems that examples like Boussargues were not taken in consideration in the interpretation of similar Portuguese enclosures. But I think it would be useful to approach the records of this sites (Porto das Carretas and São Pedro are no longer physically available for research, as we all know, so we only rely on the records of the excavations) with this perspective and question them free from some prejudices.

Bibliographic References:

Colomer, A. , Coularou, J. e Gutherz, X. (1990), “Boussargues (Argelliers, Hérault). Un habitat ceituré chalcolitique : les fouilles du secteur oust.”, Documents d’Archéologie Française, 24, Paris.

Mataloto, Rui (2010), “O 3º/4º milénio a.C. no povoado de São Pedro (Redondo, Alentejo Central): fortificação e povoamento na planície centro alentejana“, (GONÇALVES, V. e SOUSA, A.C., Eds), Transformação e mudança no centro e sul de Portugal: o 4º e o 3º milénios a.n.e., Cascais, CMC, p.263-295.

Silva, C.T. e Soares, J. (2002), "Porto das Carretas. Um povoado fortificado do vale do Guadiana", Almadan, 2ª Série, 11, p.176-180.

0110 - Overlapping ditches

This is an important issue for ditched enclosures understanding that hasn’t been researched as it deserves in Iberia. Here is a situation from Perdigões that we just started to approach.

 In sector P we open an area to research the overlapping of ditches 7 and 8. The first observation is that, contrary to what we assumed by the geophysics magnetogram, ditch 8 is older than ditch 7. In fact, it is ditch 7 that cuts ditch 8, and partially “walks over it” in the excavated section.

 

 

And that is really odd. Why open a ditch (which implies a lot of work and effort) in the bed rock, and then cut just partially, in small distances, a previous ditch? Why not use more of that previous ditch?  Or, why not fully avoid that previous ditch?

It seems that they just wanted to cut a new ditch, with a wavy plan, with no regard to previous ditch 8. But, if we look to the magnetogram, ditch 8 is a concentric mach to previous ditch 6. And why the ditch has part f its trajectory inside ditch 7, and then sudden  get outside, and then curved to be over it, just to get in again?

The conclusion is that no easy modern rational explanation can deal with these strange practices of opening ditches at Perdigões. We must keep our minds opened in the presence of these enclosed spaces.  The previous seems to condition the posterior, but in very complex ways not easy to explain.

0097 - How did they do it?

They did choose adequate bedrocks. There is a clear relation between Portuguese ditched enclosures and geology that enables an easier excavation. But making it easier doesn’t mean it was easy.

In fact, to excavate the ditches, that in South Portugal started at least in Late Neolithic (second half of the 4th millennium), they must have used the technology developed since earlier times: the technology developed in mining for flint or for minerals, like variscite.

I have already drawn the attention for the fact that there are several evidences of “transference of technology” in Prehistory, from some areas to others; from some kind of architectures to others. For instance, the building of the access corridor between walls to the inside enclosure of Castro de Santiago is clearly an application of megalithic building procedures.

So, to study the technologies adopted to open ditches it is in mining tools and in mining techniques that we might find a window. There is a clear interesting relation that can be established between the researches of these two Neolithic practices.

And the same can be argued about the hypogeal building tradition. There is knowledge and an assemblage of techniques and tools that must have had a transversal use in different building activities. Underground techniques of excavation are certainly earlier than ditched enclosures in western Iberia. They might have provided the means to the architectural materialization of some new ideas. Just like the megalithic “engineering” was certainly helpful for walled enclosures.

So, looking into mines, and mining material, might be useful when we study ditched enclosures.

0095 – Modular architectures

This is an interesting perspective into ditched enclosures building procedures: the possibility that a ditch is not done in a row, but is a result of several modules, parts, that are added. The enclosure is a result of a process. The result is a sequence of overlapped (or almost overlapped) sections of short ditches, frequently with different dimensions.

I argue about this possibility recently, in two papers (Valera & Becker, 2011; Valera, in press). My first contact with the idea was in a paper on Herhxeim enclosures (a Neolithic LBK site), where human bones were scattered inside overlapping sections of ditches that, at the end, defined an enclosure. Then I read a short sentence in a blog from Manuel Calado and the excavations he did in Salgada (Borba, Alentejo), where he spoke of a similar situation (only with no human bones). I even did a post on that issue (see here).

Then I recall the thesis of Pedro Diaz del Rio (2008) about the building process of some walled enclosures: the possibility that walls in sites such as Los Millares or Castanheiro do Vento might have been built in modules; as independent, but converging, projects develop through time as a metaphor of a trans equalitarian social organization, still far from coercive and well stratified social relations.   

When the geophysical image of Xancra came out of the magical machine of Helmut Becker, it became clear to me that we might be in presence of a similar situation of a ditch built through the adding of modules. This is quite clear in the outside ditch of Xancra, as I point it out in the paper (Valera & Becker, 2011).

The highlights show areas where parts of the ditch seam to “join” or “overlap”.

Well, the enclosure under excavation by Era in Alentejo is confirming this situation. In the external ditch we are documenting sections, with different depths and widths, that are overlapping showing, with no doubt,  that the final enclosure is the result of a sequence of additions of ditch sections with different dimensions and made in different moments in time. The building of this outside enclosure was a long process. It was not made at once. And, naturally, it was not for defence or drainage.

Here is a gate. In both sides there is a section of the ditch that is not very deep. Then, in both sides, two new sections were made, more deep and  large, cutting the previous sections. It is clear the semi circular joining of the different sections.

Here is another overlap: the left part of the ditched, already filled, was excavated in a slide way and the new section filled with a different sequence of depositions.



Here we can see the top of the sinuous path of the outside ditch. It is quite clear that there is a part with top stones, then a section almost without stones, and then again a new section with stones (that ends at the cut present in the previous image). Even at the top filling this sectioning of the ditch is visible.

I wonder when the traditional discourse, that sees fortified settlements in all these sites, will get in time with the actual empirical evidence.  

Ah! Yes, I almost forgot: there are funerary contexts inside.

Bibliographic References:

DIÁZ-DEL-RIO, Pedro (2008), “El context social de las agregaciones de población durante el Calcolítico Peninsular”, ERA Arqueologia, 8, Lisboa, Era-Arqueologia / Colibri, p.128-137.

VALERA, António Carlos (in press), “Fossos sinuosos na Pré-História Recente do Sul de Portugal: ensaio de análise crítica”, Actas do V Encontro de Arqueologia do SW Peninsular.

VALERA, António Carlos & BECKER, Helmut (2011), “Cosmologia e recintos de fossos da Pré-História Recente: resultados da prospecção geofísica em Xancra (Cuba, Beja)”, Apontamentos de Arqueologia e Património, 7, Lisboa, NIA-ERA, p.23-32.

0089 – Timber

Parts of the magnetograms obtained by Helmut Becker for Perdigões and Moreiros 2, showing alignments of post holes from possible palisades and (in the case of Moreiros) of a timber circular structure.

This is a material that has been underestimated in the Iberian archaeology of Prehistoric architecture. The reason is certainly related to the poor preservation of timber evidences, but also to axiomatic postures. We are too much preset to stone building and to forget wood.

The recent projects on the geophysics of ditched enclosures (at Perdigões by Málaga University and NIA-ERA, and in several others sites by NIA-ERA in a project directed by me, all having Helmut Becker as geophysicist) has suggested other ways: wood must have been much more important in building positive structures. There is even a possible wood circle in Serpa area (in print), that might bring to Iberia a type of Neolithic constructions not yet documented.

But the main problem is that Portuguese archaeologists (or should I say Iberian archaeologists) are not trained to recognize the remains of wooden constructions. I mean post holes.

Ho yes, we have a lot of small post holes, of 10, 15 centimetres diameter. Those we have and the huts imagined with them. But large timber structures are missing, though geophysics shows it differently.

In fact, there are many pits in many places traditionally and axiomatically interpreted as “silos”, or reused “silos”, that don’t have (or almost don’t have) anything inside but sediments and some stones. But many of those pits might be large post holes, of trunk posts, like the ones shown in Helmut’s geophysical images. The problem is that the majority of archaeological interventions are spatially restricted, and what might be a sequence of post holes becomes one or one and a half “silos”.

Architectures with large timber trunks must start to be considered in Iberia. There is now enough evidence to suggest that those constructions might have had a significant importance, far more than recognize by traditional discourse.

But, naturally, with this recognition new problems arise. If we are talking of post that are tree trunks we must start asking what kind of trees we have here that might provide long strait trunks for those constructions. South Iberia, even then, was not central Europe or North Europe. Vegetation was different. So, what kind of tree could be use for large timber structures using tree trunks? A question that was not asked yet to the people that studies paleo flora.

A new inquiry is in the agenda.

0085 - Why are they circular?

"It is not the right angle that attracts me neither the strait line, hard, inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curved line, the curve that I found in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous path of its rivers, in the waves of the sea, in a woman’s body. From curves is made the Universe – the infinite curved universe of Einstein."(Oscar Niemeyer – my translation)

"Não é o ângulo recto que me atrai nem a linha recta, dura, inflexível, criada pelo homem. O que me atrai é a curva livre e sensual, a curva que encontro nas montanhas do meu país, no curso sinuoso dos seus rios, nas ondas do mar, no corpo da mulher amada. De curvas é feito todo o universo – o universo curvo de Einstein."
(Oscar Niemeyer)

That is why I think we cannot understand these sites without an approach from the history of mentalities and cosmogonies. Because architecture materializes mind and world views.