Dams as Symbols of Modernization: The Urbanization of Nature Between Geographical Imagination and Materiality

Abstract

The article offers an analysis of the iconography and symbolism of dam constructions at three levels: first, as embodiments of the dialectics between geographical imaginations and material practices in the process of modernization; second, as symbols of modernity's quest to conquer and urbanize nature; and third, as the catalysts for reconfiguring the relationship between nature and the city. The article grounds its analysis on the study of the Marathon dam, the first dam project for watering Athens, constructed in the 1920s. Being the biggest dam construction at the time in the Balkans, it became an iconic marker of Athens's modernization and of Greece's modernist project for controlling and taming nature. It also signaled a new era of trade relations between the United States and Greece by introducing American capital and work practices into Greece. However, this decidedly modern project was wrought with heavy neoclassical ornamentation and symbolism, and was veneered with the same marble as that used for the Parthenon. The article interprets this as an effort to reconcile iconographically the two prevailing geographical imaginations that infused the modernizing desires of Athens: modernizing the city through connecting it to the West and modernizing it through reconnecting it to its classical past. In the analysis, the article draws on original material from the archives of the National Library of Greece in Athens.

Key Words:

• Athens
• dams
• Marathon
• urbanization
• water

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Erik Swyngedouw, David Dodman, and Alexander Loftus for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. I am also grateful to the editor and the anonymous referees for their thoughtful and constructive comments that helped me greatly with improving the article. Special thanks are due to George Shoterioo for allowing me to use his photographic work and to Ailsa Allen for her cartographic input. Many thanks are due to the Water Supply and Sewerage Corporation of Athens (EYΔAΠ) for their support of the research project and for granting me copyright permission. The research was funded by the Greek State's Scholarships Foundation (I.K.Y.).

Notes

1. The origin of the term “Modernity” as well as the chronological boundaries of the historical period that carries the same name remains a source of debate. I cannot rehearse this debate within the scope of this contribution. However, it should be noted that the analysis in this article accepts the view that places the beginning of Modernity in the seventeenth century, and sees it as an era characterized by forward looking, a new world view, and a new set of social expectations. For a review of the debate, see 113 Toulmin (1990) and 5 Bauman (1991) .

2. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from Greek texts were performed by the author.

3. Many thanks are due to the anonymous referee who brought this point to my attention.

4. As in some other countries (Germany, France, Egypt, etc.), the engineering profession was (and still is) so highly respected in Greece that the word “Engineer” is used as an honorary title and often features as a prefix to the person's surname.

5. One such case was the proposal tendered by Engineer Fokionos Negris on 24 March 1899 for drilling boreholes on Mt. Lycabettus.

6. Britain makes an interesting exception to this process. There, “the modernist engineering aesthetic … did not find enthusiastic support.” Cosgrove Roscoe, and Rycroft (1996, 549) describe the efforts to “naturalize” the aesthetics of the Ladybower and later the Rutland reservoirs by inserting them into the wider landscape “rather as lakes within a Georgian estate park.” In most other European countries, however, engineering artifacts in rural landscapes became one of the first instances where modernism asserted its own landscape aesthetics. In the United States ( 3 b20 Allen 1952; Cosgrove 1990 ), Spain ( 111 Swyngedouw 2005 ), Italy ( 12 Caprotti and Kaika 2002 ), France, and Germany, and France and Germany, dams, reservoirs, and water-pumping machines were proudly displayed in their brutal beauty, with no effort to historicize them by inserting them in a man-made pastoral landscape. The crucial role that financial constraints played in the decision not to implement landscape design projects along with water engineering projects cannot be overemphasized. Although that discussion lies outside the scope of this article, it should be noted that Greece was not alone in being unable to afford landscape design projects in the beginning of the twentieth century. Indeed, it is only recently that the establishment of environmental protection and restoration funds enabled many European countries and the United States to embark on extensive wetland and landscape restoration programs.