“Water throughout history has been perceived as the stuff which

“Water throughout history has been perceived as the stuff which
radiates purity: H2O is the new stuff, on whose purification
human survival now depends. H2O and water have become
opposites: H2O is a social creation of modern times, a resource
that is scarce and that call for technical management. It is an
observed fluid that has lost the ability to mirror the water of
dreams. The city child has no opportunities to come in touch
with living water. Water can no more be observed; it can only
be imagined, by reflecting on an occasional drop or a humble
puddle.”*
Illich, Ivan. H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness. London: Marion Boyars Publishers (1986), 75-6.
The “essence” of water is so primal and fundamental in our consciousness
yet simultaneously so elusive. It is the artifacts that respond to the
principles of water, which we find architecturally so fascinating, in that
they reflect the place of water within a culture. The issue of water poses
fundamental architectural problems that require serious consideration with
respect to gravity, elevation and pressure, all of which imply spatialization,
temporality and movement.
Taksim reservoir, currently operating as an art gallery, was originally built
as part of a water distribution system for the municipality of Beyoglu,
Istanbul. This system which fragments and branches throughout the
urban environment, emerges from the ground arriving at each mosque
via fountains essential to each community. The elevation and geography
of Taksim situates the water table above sea level creating natural
water springs echoing the principles of gravity and pressure integral to
architectural water systems such as water towers. This project brings water
back to Taksim reservoir.
This project directly implicates what is not seen, what is hidden from view
and comes out of the landscape, perforating the ground and emerging,
flowing directly into our daily lives. Water is a dynamic, unstoppable
material demanding architectural responsiveness. This thesis examines the
material quality of water, which serves as an immediate analogue from an
urban infrastructure to an architectural scale. The infrastructure of water
and its systems provided tangible evidence of materiality, a fundamentally
architectural issue addressing several architectural scales; the scale of the
city, then moving towards the building, and finally to the scale of the detail,
each employing these principles of water at the site of Taksim.
The form of the pressurized vessels emerged by borrowing from traditional
geometric Islamic patterning and through the extensive process of material
exploration and casting, The movement of water though architecture is
the basic framework explored to understand the relationship of water
and air throughout a building and its implications within an architectural
discourse. Water implicates fundamental tectonic principles, a network
of systems in architecture, and its mechanics of the principles of gravity,
elevation, hydrostatic and atmospheric pressure. The architecture becomes
a dynamic responsive system in and of itself, exploring and presenting
a hidden, underground world that is fundamental to the understanding
not only of architecture, and the invisible force of the phenomena of
pressure, but also the basic elements of water and air so primal in all our
experiences.
Urban Manifold : Distribution at Taksim
Ariadna Choptiany
Primary Advisor: Patrick Harrop