Water, infrastructure and public space in Lisbon: rethinking public space along the aqueduct in Lisbon

Abstract

In the 21st century, the question of how to define a good city is anything but clear-cut. As diverse as the needs of modern society are, as numerous seem to be the answers to them, and yet one cannot arrive at a universally valid answer that serves all registers. The central subject of this investigation always leads back to public space. The living space between buildings is considered decisive for social developments in a city. It results from systems of different scales, territorial, infrastructural as well as cultural. How and where people come together in a city defines it. In the following work, public space is considered in terms of these different scales. The concepts of public space and infrastructure serve as leitmotifs, focusing on the infrastructural interaction between aqueduct and public space in the city of Lisbon. The work is divided into three scales of different size and time. First, the concept of infrastructure itself is explored in order to understand the dialectic in which modernity, infrastructure and public space confront each other. Based on primary sources and texts, an introduction to the history of post-medieval hydraulic engineering in European cities will be given. Then, using the example of the city of Lisbon, which was supplied by an aqueduct for almost two centuries from the 18th century onwards, it will be examined how such a large infrastructure produced public spaces that are still very present in the cityscape today. Finally, the fruit of these reflections is a proposal for the conversion of a reservoir in Lisbon. The discourse will address how historical examples can serve as inspiration for the use, conversion and expansion of public spaces along the aqueduct and provide impulses for the development of new typologies.