Acqua Viva e Corrente: Insights From Renaissance Fontanieri Mastery

When peeking into a terrarium, the observer might be amused and surprised by its complexity in such a tiny space. This microcosm reveals an intricated layered ecosystem of life and inert elements, such as rocks, soil and water in its liquid, vapor, and condensing forms. Without water little or no life at all would thrive even in this small environment. The image of the terrarium is evocative of several concepts. An interesting one is of a controlled nature, or a third nature as John Dixon Hunt will call the garden villas: pleasant aesthetic landscapes. Both the terrarium and the garden villas befitted from the control of water in a man-made system. The scarcity and abundance of water represents one of the oldest challenges in human history, intrinsic with evolving notions of nature and its representation over centuries. Until today, our relationship with water has not been resolved, mainly because of the invisibility of the water infrastructures below ground. Water is still the source of debate for several design disciplines, such as landscape, architecture, and urban design, and so the issue could be investigated though several lenses that are not in the scope of this article. Nevertheless, two lenses might be specially interesting to the discipline of design: the political and the technological. The political roots of the problem have been explored extensively in the works of Matthew Gandy, Eryk Swyngedouw, Maria Kaika and Bruno Latour. While recognizing the problem’s political dimensions this contribution focuses on the second thread: technology.