Urban Water II

Le château d'eau du Peyrou, Montpellier France 2005

©EOP

"One of Montpellier’s more interesting architectural curiosities is the neoclassical temple Chateau d’Eau in the Promenade du Peyrou. Built to hide the reservoir of the Aqueduc St-Clement (completed in 1771) to bring water from the Lez river. The aqueduct is located behind the temple and modeled on the Pont du Gard."

One of the great and continuing challenges of human society has been the supply of water in urbanized areas and the associated issue of removing sewage (an issue we shall not investigate in any detail). Located in a Mediterranean climate, the city of Montpellier in southern France, long a center of medicine and science, was annually faced with the summer drought associated with its climate. Its response was an old one for cities near the shores of the Mediterranean, construction of an aqueduct from a nearby river to the center of the city. Not far away is the famed Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct crossing the Gard one of the larger rivers in southern France. That aqueduct brought water to the city of Nîmes, an important Roman settlement which continued to use water brought by the aqueduct long after the fall of the Roman Empire. On a first view one might also attribute the aqueduct and associated works in Montpellier to the Romans, but in fact they were constructed during the ancien regime. Montpellier, world renowned for its university and the associated medical school and also a city that was a hotbed of Protestant religious activity, was a particular focus for the Paris government and resources were freed for construction of its waterworks a couple of decades before the Revolution.

Montpellier was something of a pioneer, for construction of large urban water supply systems was fairly uncommon from Roman times until the 19th century in Europe and the Americas. Most cities used water from adjacent streams along with water from wells or surface seeps and rain collected in cisterns. Much of that water was fouled with wastes from upstream users and sewage from the cities themselves, and water borne illnesses including cholera and typhoid were not rare. Only a few cities sought water from purer sources to meet their needs. The rapid increase in urban populations beginning in the late 18th century along with increasing knowledge about the importance of water (clean water came later) for health was a goad to construction.

Philadelphia's waterworks, also using a classically inspired building as one of its centerpieces (see posting above) was in some degree inspired by two Francophiles who spent significant time in the Pennsylvania city, Thomas Jefferson and especially Benjamin Franklin, both of whom were familiar with Montpellier, Nîmes and waterworks in France.

Urban Water Supply

Fairmount Waterworks, Philadelphia, PA 1998

© EOP

Spending several days in Philadelphia earlier this week, I have not done much work on  the water course. The issue of water was not completely absent, for on a visit to the Philadelphia Museum (brown temple like building in the upper section of photo), we parked in a lot above the Fairmount Waterworks, some classic revival buildings of substantial architectural interest on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River near downtown Philadelphia.With its museum honoring the city's waterworks, the building is also of substantial interest as a surviving element of one of the oldest municipal water supply systems in the world. Originally opened in 1815, the pumping station has been closed for over a century, but it marks the initial source of a reliable supply of clean water for the residents of the Pennsylvania city and the origins of the idea that a supply of potable water was essential for urban success.

Upstream from the waterworks and the dam on the Schuylkill is Fairmount Park. It was originally created to protect the quality of the city's water by limiting development of its watershed, an idea still very much in the forefront of urban water supply planning. Philadelphia today draws its water from a much larger area, but the green space remains one of the largest urban parks in the United States. A number of urban innovations had their origins in Philadelphia, including a fire department created through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin.Its growth to become one of the largest cities in the United States depended on increasing its water supply. Today's water system supplies a vastly larger population spread over a much larger land area than the Fairmount Park pumping station supplied. A good website called Philly H2O has all kinds of information about the city's water supply, including a great map collection.