This chapter investigates the historical alignment that can be observed between two infrastructural conditions—the path/street and the water structures in the Indian subcontinent. It examines two contrasting conditions where, on the one hand, the path seems almost created to connect the water tanks to form a circumambulatory setting mainly found at pilgrimage sites. On the other hand, it looks at urban situations in small towns and large cities in western India where one discerns that historically street nodes were intertwined with the presence of water infrastructure and this influences the nature of the social space and its spatial experience. These stepwells or hand-drawn water wells played a major role in the everyday life of the place. The character and type of the node itself acquired the role of the street marker. Considering two situations, it reveals that deterritorialization is less prevalent in the first instance of pilgrimage paths in the landscape that connect water bodies as compared to the water structures at nodes in dense urban conditions. This is due to the transformation of urban infrastructural conditions in the 20th century that impacts everyday life and activities. This study identifies the historical choreography between the two infrastructural conditions that offers a unique perspective of the spatial and experiential dimension of built form and landscape that could potentially provide us with the modes to identify how reterritorialization can be more nuanced in the contemporary condition.

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A Dialogue of Two Infrastructures

  • Aarati Kanekar,
  • Meghal Arya

摘要

This chapter investigates the historical alignment that can be observed between two infrastructural conditions—the path/street and the water structures in the Indian subcontinent. It examines two contrasting conditions where, on the one hand, the path seems almost created to connect the water tanks to form a circumambulatory setting mainly found at pilgrimage sites. On the other hand, it looks at urban situations in small towns and large cities in western India where one discerns that historically street nodes were intertwined with the presence of water infrastructure and this influences the nature of the social space and its spatial experience. These stepwells or hand-drawn water wells played a major role in the everyday life of the place. The character and type of the node itself acquired the role of the street marker. Considering two situations, it reveals that deterritorialization is less prevalent in the first instance of pilgrimage paths in the landscape that connect water bodies as compared to the water structures at nodes in dense urban conditions. This is due to the transformation of urban infrastructural conditions in the 20th century that impacts everyday life and activities. This study identifies the historical choreography between the two infrastructural conditions that offers a unique perspective of the spatial and experiential dimension of built form and landscape that could potentially provide us with the modes to identify how reterritorialization can be more nuanced in the contemporary condition.