Water lies at the intersection of landscape and infrastructure, crossing between visible and invisible domains of urban space, in the tanks and buckets of the global South and the vast subterranean technological networks of the global North. In this book, Matthew Gandy considers the cultural and material significance of water through the experiences of six cities: Paris, Berlin, Lagos, Mumbai, Los Angeles, and London. Tracing the evolving relationships among modernity, nature, and the urban imagination, from different vantage points and through different periods, Gandy uses water as a lens through which to observe both the ambiguities and the limits of nature as conventionally understood. Gandy begins with the Parisian sewers of the nineteenth century, captured in the photographs of Nadar, and the reconstruction of subterranean Paris. He moves on to Weimar-era Berlin and its protection of public access to lakes for swimming, the culmination of efforts to reconnect the city with nature. He considers the threat of malaria in Lagos, where changing geopolitical circumstances led to large-scale swamp drainage in the 1940s. He shows how the dysfunctional water infrastructure of Mumbai offers a vivid expression of persistent social inequality in a postcolonial city. He explores the incongruous concrete landscapes of the Los Angeles River. Finally, Gandy uses the fictional scenario of a partially submerged London as the starting point for an investigation of the actual hydrological threats facing that city.
...MoreReview Maurits Ertsen (July 2016) Review of "The fabric of space: Water, modernity, and the urban imagination". Technology and Culture (pp. 684-685).
Similar Citations
Book
Melosi, Martin V.;
(2011)
Precious Commodity: Providing Water for America's Cities
(/isis/citation/CBB001212518/)
Article
Hansen, Jan;
(2019)
Das Steuern und Regeln von Infrastrukturen und der Wasseralltag in Los Angeles (1870–1920) [Control and Regulation of Infrastructures and Everyday Water Life in Los Angeles (1870-1920)]
(/isis/citation/CBB820023036/)
Article
Fonseca, Alberto;
Prado Filho, José Francisco do;
(2010)
Um esquecido marco do saneamento no Brasil: o sistema de águas e esgotos de Ouro Preto (1887--1890)
(/isis/citation/CBB001420442/)
Thesis
Soppelsa, Peter S.;
(2009)
The Fragility of Modernity: Infrastructure and Everyday Life in Paris, 1870--1914
(/isis/citation/CBB001560905/)
Book
Samuel Merrill;
(2018)
Networked Remembrance: Excavating Buried Memories in the Railways beneath London and Berlin.
(/isis/citation/CBB007770395/)
Book
Matthew V. Bender;
(2019)
Water brings no harm : management knowledge and the struggle for the waters of Kilimanjaro
(/isis/citation/CBB806270320/)
Book
Levin, Miriam R.;
(2010)
Urban Modernity: Cultural Innovation in the Second Industrial Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001031314/)
Book
John Broich;
(2013)
London: Water and the Making of the Modern City
(/isis/citation/CBB454439004/)
Article
Michael Holleran;
(2022)
Water Qualities and Usage in the Zanjas of Los Angeles, 1781–1904
(/isis/citation/CBB101425694/)
Book
Dinçkal, Noyan;
(2004)
Istanbul und das Wasser. Zur Geschichte der Wasserversorgung und Abwasserentsorgung von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis 1966
(/isis/citation/CBB000831162/)
Book
Schneider, Daniel;
(2011)
Hybrid Nature: Sewage Treatment and the Contradictions of the Industrial Ecosystem
(/isis/citation/CBB001221124/)
Book
Lucas Bessire;
(2021)
Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains
(/isis/citation/CBB448006872/)
Book
Jeremy J. Schmidt;
(2019)
Water: Abundance, Scarcity, and Security in the Age of Humanity
(/isis/citation/CBB568175092/)
Book
Timothy Moss;
(2020)
Remaking Berlin: A History of the City through Infrastructure, 1920–2020
(/isis/citation/CBB159764389/)
Article
Rita Padawangi;
(2017)
Building Knowledge, Negotiating Expertise: Participatory Water Supply Advocacy and Service in Globalizing Jakarta
(/isis/citation/CBB197152200/)
Thesis
Hardy, Eric M.;
(2011)
Policy Drought: Water Resource Management, Urban Growth, and Technological Solutions in Post-World War II Atlanta
(/isis/citation/CBB001567270/)
Thesis
Peterson, Maya Karin;
(2011)
Technologies of Rule: Empire, Water, and the Modernization of Central Asia, 1867--1941
(/isis/citation/CBB001567280/)
Book
Wishart, David J;
(2013)
The Last Days of the Rainbelt
(/isis/citation/CBB001420378/)
Book
Tim Stroshane;
(2016)
Drought, Water Law, and the Origins of California's Central Valley Project
(/isis/citation/CBB260419535/)
Book
Nilsen, Micheline;
(2008)
Railways and the Western European Capitals: Studies of Implantation in London, Paris, Berlin, and Brussels
(/isis/citation/CBB000951817/)
Be the first to comment!