Abstract:
We tend to forget that every water stream, has a source, an initial point of emergence, and
an end point. Instead, most texts and research deal with the protagonist (The River) as the
only actor within the landscape. In reality, this river, is a result of streamed water, from
the point of expulsion (source) to where it spills (end). These two points, initial and final,
rise as the main concern to the forgotten morphology of the Water Network. In Cities, we
deal with these “final”, as the space of water expulsion and communal use, where the
water network is further funneled into a sub-network, that leads to the household. In order
to further, elaborate on these typologies, I first categorize a heading, under which all these
morphologies fall.
This research seeks to formulate a connection between water and space, to prove to the
audience that Water itself is a landscape typology, and that no matter the scale of the
latter, it can perform as a cultural landscape telling tales of the children that have
rampaged through the ripples and dipped a toe or two. But also, seeks to preserve these
waterscapes, and re-juvinate the Memory, and Maybe, just maybe then re-integrate the
Original Function, of the Waterscape.
Similarly, Beirut, the city of Water, caters for its own subnetwork of water typologies,
classified by the “Sabil”, “Hawooz”, “Ain”,”Sakye”, “birke”, that similar to the step
wells, have become but a mere story that our grandparents tell, or simply a mere Name
of a location, or a street that the local taxi driver uses to drop off his passengers!
