TICCIH Thematic Conference
Museu Agbar de les Aigües | Barcelona, Spain
13 - 14 April, 2018
The modern infrastructure to supply water and to remove and treat waste was retro-fitted to towns and cities across the world, pulling them back from a sanitary crisis which was threatening to make life intolerable. Faced with industrialisation, miserable living conditions and repeated epidemics, water supply systems and drainage networks were devised and incorporated into urban landscapes. The impressive quality of their engineering and architectural design shows how important they were for the societies of the time, and many continue to make a vital contribution to living conditions today.
Presentations by international experts will examine how this historic infrastructure should be valued, and consider what is most significant about the heritage of the water industry. The conference is the concluding part of a thematic comparative study undertaken by TICCIH for ICOMOS to define the criteria which could be used to assess the heritage of the water industry and to identify its outstanding sites - dams, reservoirs and water towers, aqueducts, waterworks and pumping stations, filter and treatment works, and the networks of pipes and mains which connect them all together - including those which might be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The TICCIH thematic conference on the heritage of the water industry will put the water industry infrastructure into its historic technological and social context, examine the origins of the technical solutions that were developed, and compare how they were applied in different industrial cities around the world.
The program may be subject to changes. Download the program
Professor Martin Melosi is internationally known in the areas of environmental, energy, and urban history. Director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston, USA, his many publications include the multiple-award-winning The Sanitary City which traces the development of water supply, wastewater, and waste treatment systems, and to which the forthcoming The Networked City, a study of energy, transportation, and communication systems in the United States, will be a companion volume.
James Douet is an industrial heritage consultant and exhibition curator in Barcelona, and editor of Industrial Heritage Re-tooled, the TICCIH guide to industrial heritage conservation. His publications include Temples of Steam, Waterworks Architecture in the Steam Age, and he coordinated the TICCIH comparative thematic study of the heritage of the water industry.
Rolf Höhmann runs the Büro für Industriearchäologie in Darmstadt, Germany, documenting and evaluating historic technical monuments and industrial sites and landscapes. He is a specialist in large sites of the iron and steel and the coal industry, and has coordinated the nomination of the Augsburg water supply system for the World Heritage List.
Professor Susan Ross is a licensed architect and assistant professor at Carleton University, Canada, where she teaches heritage conservation in the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies. Her research examines the history of water supply infrastructure and its application in Montreal.
Dr Manel Martin teaches in Barcelona and is the leading authority on the history of the city's water supply. His book Barcelona: aigua i ciutat shows how a modern water supply infrastructure was brought into the 2,000-year-old city between the two universal exhibitions of 1888 and 1929.
Dr Šárka Jiroušková is the manager of the Old Wastewater Treatment Plant, Prague-Bubenec, in the Czech Republic, responsible for industrial heritage, industrial tourism, and presentation of the Old WTP. Her research investigated hydraulic structures and water-resources management, and she has been active in the field of industrial heritage for 20 years.
Dr Jorge Tartarini is Director of the Museo del Agua in Buenos Aires, Argentina, within the spectacular reservoir Palacio de las Aguas Corrientes. For many years a leading architect working in industrial heritage and a specialist in railway architecture, he published Historias del Agua en Buenos Aires: de Aguateros, Aljibes y Aguas Corrientes in 2010.
Stephen Hughes is the TICCIH Secretary, and is vice-president of ICOMOS-UK. He was the Projects Director of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales. He prepared the TICCIH thematic studies of canals and coal mines, and coordinates the work of TICCIH with ICOMOS on World Heritage Sites. He has published widely on early railway and canal archaeology and industrial landscapes.
Sònia Hernández (Director, Museu Agbar de les Aigües), Eusebi Casanelles (Spain, Life President, TICCIH), James Douet (UK, TICCIH), Rolf Höhmann (TICCIH Germany), Stephen Hughes (UK, Secretary TICCIH), Dr Šárka Jiroušková (Czech Republic), Prof. José Manuel Lopez Cordeiro (TICCIH Portugal), Professor Patrick Martin (USA, President TICCIH), Dr Manel Martin (Spain), Prof Massimo Preite (TICCIH Italy), Professor Susan Ross (Canada),
Prof Jorge Tartarini (Argentina).
The conference organizers invite you to present posters on any subject relevant to the theme of the conference.
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