Front façade in 1997
Note: These photos are expandable to very large sizes.
This subtlety in the volume arrangement frequently leads the Río Bec architects--as well as many of their contemporaries on the Yucatan peninsula--to introduce a series of breaks in the sections of the façades, in order to divide them into three clearly differentiated parts.
A similar tripartite compositional scheme—or "tripartite rule" (Pollock 1965:428)—can be vary clearly seen in the main façade of Structure I at Xpuhil, where the corners of the sections projecting forward are emphasized by the presence of an embedded column, another frequent feature in peninsular architecture."
Paul Gendrop, Rio Bec, Chenes and Puuc Styles in Maya Architecture, p. 45.