Europe's liquid commons : towards a public territorial infrastructure

Abstract

'his thesis examines the possibility of using intermodal logistics infrastructure on the Rhine-Danube waterway, as part of the Trans European Infrastructure Network, as a means to create a symbolic and operative commons between the East and West of Europe. A historical perspective on the physical transformations of Rhine is used to illustrate the seminal role they played in the formation of transnational diplomacy and economic collaborations in the West of Europe.'The waterway because of its liquid characteristics is proposed as an operative transnational political conduit where societal ideals and geographic particularities are negotiated through infrastructural transformations of the riparian landscape. A retrospective into the history of architectural infrastructure proposes a reappraisal of the "layer-method" to integrate earthwork (cut and fill landscaping), infrastructure and urban form as means to give a symbolic form to the territory. An exemplary project is proposed in Novisad, Serbia where a public sphere surrounding a variety of hydrologic programs exposes certain symbiotic and conflictual uses of water.'The panoptical urban condition that is designed is meant to reveal and actuate a more transparent and public political struggle between the individual and collective through an irreducibly common commodity, namely water.