{"id":83062,"date":"2026-10-06T17:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/?p=83062"},"modified":"2026-10-06T17:32:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:32:32","slug":"area-interior-19-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/area-interior-19-water\/","title":{"rendered":"area interior 19 | water"},"content":{"rendered":"

Water and architecture<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Book VIII of \u201cDe Architectura\u201d, Vitruvius gives water a dual role: on the one hand, a functional one, as an infrastructure capable of sustaining both territory and city; on the other, a poetic and philosophical one, as an element that evokes an intimate balance between artifice and nature. <\/p>\n

Going further back, water forms the backdrop to the dialogue between Socrates and the young Phaedrus in Plato\u2019s \u201cPhaedrus\u201d. It is no coincidence, after all, that the earliest forms of architecture \u2013 sacred architecture \u2013 emerged in the locus amoenus, where the purifying element of water sprang from the earth. <\/p>\n

Water thus enters the architectural organism as a material in its own right, capable of shaping its function while overcoming the difficult dichotomy between the natural and the artificial. This is particularly evident in the work of several masters of the past who made water, understood as a fluid material, a defining element of their architecture.<\/p>\n

Carlo Scarpa, Luis Barrag\u00e1n and Louis Kahn, for example, used water to alter the spatial and formal configuration of their projects, transforming them into a kind of \u2018living architecture\u2018, whose sensory experience shifts with the changing refractions of light and the sounds generated by the water itself. <\/p>\n

The contemporary landscape offers numerous examples in which water becomes a vehicle for architectural expression. Peter Zumthor\u2019s Therme Vals (1996), for instance, or Kengo Kuma\u2019s Guest House (1995), overlooking the Pacific Ocean, demonstrate how water can become an integral part of the spatial experience rather than simply an additional element. <\/p>\n

Yet this multifaceted, poetic and purifying element does not always enter into an idyllic relationship with architecture. Water can also take on its most brutal and uncontrollable form, revealing a force capable of challenging the very balance between nature and artifice. This has become increasingly evident in the environmental disasters of recent years and in the complex, dramatic consequences of climate change, which are inexorably reshaping our everyday lives \u2013 and, with them, our relationship with the natural and the built environment. <\/p>\n

At Area, we have explored the relationship between water and architecture on several occasions (Area 188 may-june 2023, Area 154 + april 2018), recognising how much of this dialogue lies in water\u2019s ability to lose its transparency when it encounters matter, while simultaneously absorbing and reflecting the image of architecture: the principle of the \u2018double\u2018, so central to Robert Venturi\u2019s thinking. <\/p>\n

In this issue, we seek to explore further water\u2019s ability to establish a profound connection between matter and perception, showing how these two dimensions are ultimately inseparable. Water does not simply reflect architecture, nor does architecture merely contain water: together, they form a dual relationship in which it becomes increasingly difficult to determine where one ends and the other begins.<\/p>\n

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\nDownload introduction of Laura Andreini<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Water and architecture In Book VIII of \u201cDe Architectura\u201d, Vitruvius gives water a dual role: on the one hand, a functional one, as an infrastructure capable of sustaining both territory and city; on the other, a poetic and philosophical one, as an element that evokes an intimate balance between artifice and nature. Going further back, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":83098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1798],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83100,"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83062\/revisions\/83100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archea.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}