The criteria to value the heritage of the water industry

The criteria to value the heritage of the water industry

James Douet Consultor en la posada en valor del patrimoni industrial patrimonial-industrial.com

Abstract

The presentation discusses how the historical infrastructure of the water industry should be assessed and reflects on the most significant elements of its heritage. The implementation of modern infrastructure to supply water and treat waste in cities around the world allowed us to emerge from a health crisis that threatened urban life. Faced with industrialization, miserable conditions and repeated epidemics, water supply systems and drainage networks were designed that were incorporated into the urban landscape. The exceptional quality of the technical and architectural design of these systems demonstrates the importance they had for the societies of that time, and many continue to be a key contribution to today’s living conditions. The criteria that can be used to assess the heritage of the water industry, including those that may be declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, will be presented in order to identify the most emblematic places: dams, deposits and water towers, aqueducts, supply and pumping stations, filtration and treatment plants, and the networks of pipes and ducts that connect them. Paraules clau: Industrial heritage; conservation; documentation; World Heritage; water

Resum

La ponència analitza com s’ha de valorar la infraestructura històrica de la indústria de l’aigua i reflexiona sobre els elements més significatius del seu patrimoni. La implementació d’una infraestructura moderna per abastir d’aigua i tractar els residus en ciutats arreu del món va permetre sortir d’una crisi sanitària que amenaçava la vida urbana. Davant la industrialització, unes condicions miserables i les repetides epidèmies, es van dissenyar sistemes d’abastament d’aigua i xarxes de drenatge que es van incorporar al paisatge urbà. L’excepcional qualitat del disseny tècnic i arquitectònic d’aquests sistemes demostra la importància que van tenir per a les societats d’aquella època, i molts continuen contribuint de manera clau a les condicions de vida d’avui dia. Es presentaran els criteris que es poden utilitzar per avaluar el patrimoni de la indústria hídrica, inclosos els que puguin ser declarats Patrimoni de la Humanitat per la UNESCO per tal d’identificar els llocs més emblemàtics: preses, dipòsits i torres d’aigua, aqüeductes, centrals d’abastament i de bombament, plantes de filtratge i de tractament, i les xarxes de canonades i conductes que serveixen per connectar-los. Paraules clau: Patrimoni industrial; conservació; documentació; Patrimoni de la Humanitat; aigua

Resumen

La ponencia analiza cómo se debe valorar la infraestructura histórica de la industria del agua y reflexiona sobre los elementos más significativos de su patrimonio. La implementación de una infraestructura moderna para abastecer de agua y tratar los residuos en ciudades alrededor del mundo permitió salir de una crisis sanitaria que amenazaba la vida urbana. Ante la industrialización, unas condiciones miserables y las repetidas epidemias, se diseñaron sistemas de abastecimiento de agua y redes de drenaje que se incorporaron al paisaje urbano. La excepcional calidad del diseño técnico y arquitectónico de estos sistemas demuestra la importancia que tuvieron para las sociedades de aquella época, y muchos siguen contribuyendo de manera clave a las condiciones de vida de hoy en día. Se presentarán los criterios que se pueden utilizar para evaluar el patrimonio de la industria hídrica, incluidos los que puedan ser declarados Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO con el fin de identificar los lugares más emblemáticos: presas, depósitos y torres de agua, acueductos, centrales de abastecimiento y de bombeo, plantas de filtrado y de tratamiento, y las redes de tuberías y conductos que sirven para conectarlos. Palabras clave: Patrimonio industrial; conservación; documentación; Patrimonio de la Humanidad; agua

The history of water infrastructure is inseparable from urban history, and the important developments have taken place in relation to the leading urban centres of the day.

Since the earliest attempts to obtain more reliable or abundant water, organized supply and waste removal systems have been structured around urban settlements. Many Roman towns were supplied by aqueducts with sophisticated raised bridge sections which were symptomatic of the Romans’ commitment to large-scale water supply. Examples include the aqueduct bridges in Segovia, Spain (98 CE). The Romans were the first society to impound rivers for water supply, developing structural arch and buttress dams. The oldest surviving example, the Vallon de Baume dam, stored water for the Roman town of Glanum in 1st century BCE. The two earth dams at Mérida, Spain, from the 2nd century CE created large holding reservoirs.

Centuries separate these sophisticated Roman networks from the much simpler schemes to supply water in medieval Europe. Small-scale water-supply networks were built to serve monastic communities, such as the 12th-century system to bring spring water to Canterbury cathedral, and whose most visible surviving structures are cisterns and public fountains and conduit heads.

The Pius V renovatio Romae programme adapted and modernized the ancient hydraulic infrastructure of the city after 1570: Acqua Vergine 1560–70, Acqua Felice 1585 and Acqua Paola 1607–12. By 1630, when the project was complete, there were eighty public fountains and hundreds of private ones, each connected to one of the aqueducts by hidden underground conduits.

A basic summary of the modern history of water infrastructure might divide it into three periods. From the Renaissance there is a gradual increase in the volume of water being supplied by aqueducts to public fountains, for example in Rome, Paris, Istanbul or Lisbon, and occasionally through private canals to subscribing households or water carriers as with the New River in London. A very limited number of private ventures were also set up which abstracted water from rivers in the centre of cities to supply local households, in Paris, London, and Philadelphia, using first water wheels and, once James Watt’s improved engine became available, steam engines.

Public fountainheads like the Fontana dell’acqua Felice were part of the Counter Reformation renewal of the water-supply system in Rome. (Wikipedia Commons)

The Cornalvo gravity dam supplied water to the Roman city of Mérida in Spain. (© Charly Morlock, Wikipedia Commons)

The Fairmount waterworks on the Schuylkill river in Philadelphia where waterwheels replaced beam engines to work the lift pumps. (© Ben Franske, Creative Commons)

What changes the historical value of the infrastructure of the water industry from interesting to outstanding was the rise in water-borne diseases like cholera, typhoid and yellow fever in cities which had become too large or crowded for the traditional systems of wells, privies, cess pits and drains to provide potable water and remove human waste. Cholera was particularly influential over the construction of water infrastructure because of the intensity of the epidemics and the shocking grimness of its symptoms. The first pandemic struck Europe and North America between 1826 and 1837 and there were four more during the subsequent hundred years.

In examining the history of the water industry, its strongest claim to significance was in solving the sanitary crisis which imperilled urban life during the second part of the 19th century.

The critical technological development for the progressive development of modern water and waste systems was the invention of the steam engine. This made river pumping and later borehole abstraction of groundwater into important additional sources of water, and would eventually provide the energy to remove large volumes of sewage and wastewater from even low-lying settlements. From the 1780s onwards water supply projects could use the much more powerful, reliable and economical steam pumping engine with a separate condenser developed by James Watt and manufactured by his partnership with Mathew Boulton. The

private Compagnie des Eaux de Paris built two steam-powered pumping stations on the English model beside the Seine in 1782 and 1788 which trebled the quantity of water to the city, the Gros-Caillou pump house a fine example of early water architecture with two Watt-type engines.

From the middle of the 19th century, drawing on research by nascent epidemiologists like John Snow in London, clean water and effective sewage systems started to be seen as the way forward, and a colossal effort was begun, technical, financial, political, and above all constructional, to retro-fit networks of pipes and drains, reservoirs and sewers, waterworks and water towers, first of all in the great cities like London, Berlin, Barcelona or Chicago, and gradually throughout the urbanised world. This effort predated bacteriology, the scientific understanding of water’s role in transmitting these diseases, by several decades. It was sanitary engineers and their colleagues (sometimes bitter rivals) who worked out the practical solutions to effective urban water networks and often campaigned to persuade unconvinced or parsimonious citizens to carry them into practice.

For proof of the huge social importance of this project one needs only look at its most visible public expression, the steam pumping station. London’s intercept sewage system, built

around its descriptively-named ‘Embankment’, is well known. But the twelve lifting pumping stations of Berlin’s Radialsystem, the Podolská water treatment palace in Prague, or the huge triple expansion engine houses in Melbourne, Cincinnati or Boston, are also outstanding architectural statements about the social and medical worth of water engineering.

Between 1860 and 1920 the steam pumping station embodied the struggle with disease and the resolution of the urban Sanitary Crisis. Once it had passed, however, and the existential threat from cholera or typhoid no longer haunted citizens’ imagination, so water infrastructure also faded from public consciousness and lost its role as a vehicle for expressing public virtue. Pumping technology reinforced this trend as the majestic steam engines which were the standard waterworks prime movers of the early 20th century were replaced by much more compact diesel and electric motors. The pumping station shrank and finally disappeared underground.

CONCLUSION

Three criteria present themselves as relevant in assessing the built heritage of the water industry. The first is monumentality, evident in the scale and architectural quality of the infrastructure built for water supply. The second is technical virtuosity, as the ability to build dams, aqueducts, pumping equipment or treatment works developed. But perhaps most important, if least visible to the naked eye, is social impact. Appraisals of the significance of historic water infrastructure should try and incorporate an evaluation of its social importance, and sites from the period of the 19th century Sanitary Crisis are of particular value. The example of the chlorine treatment works is illuminating. With the beginning of chlorination in the early 20th century, death rates from typhoid and cholera plunge in every city in which it is started. This should be reflected in the value we give to the heritage of the water industry.

The small Trinitat Nova pumping station in Barcelona was part of the program of chlorinating the drinking water of Barcelona.