a 1000 wells

Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.

"Isaura, city of the thousand wells, is said to rise over a deep, subterranean lake. On all sides, wherever the inhabitants dig long vertical holes in the ground, they succeed in drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no farther. Its green border repeats the dark outline of the buried lake; an invisible landscape conditions the visible one; everything that moves in the sunlight is driven by the lapping wave enclosed beneath the rock's calcareous sky.

Consequently two forms of religion exist in Isaura. The city's gods, according to some people, live in the depths, in the black lake that feeds the underground streams. According to others, the gods live in the buckets that rise, suspended from a cable, as they appear over the edge of the wells, in the revolving pullyes, in the windlasses of the norias, in the pump handles, in the blades of the windmills that draw the water up from the drillings, in the trestles that support the twisting probes, in the reservoirs perched on stilts over the roofs, in the slender arches of the aquducts, in all the columns of water, the verticle pipes, the plungers, the drains, all the way up to the weathercrocks that surmount the airy scaffoldings of Isaura, a city that movesentirely upward."

From: Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino



Venice, Italy

While I am well aware that 'Invisible Cities' has been quoted to death, in any imaginable context, this excerpt seems so relevant to the Wadi condition, I just couldn't resist, so bear with me while I get it out of my system.

As Marco Polo is describing the wonders of Venice to Kublai Khan, each time as if it were an entirely different city, I can't help but remembering the wonder I felt sitting in a Venetian Piazza, wondering if it would have been such a great public place if it weren't for the fountains in the center. Since most of them are today out of use, thanks to modern sanitation systems, one is kept wondering, what could replace these ancient wells. What would be a current necessity of the urban infrastructural kind, that doubles as a mechanism for the creation of a public realm. It has to do with need. Of course, the necessity preceded the emergence of a public space, I imagine these places became Piazzas because people congregated there to draw water from the well. Nevertheless, the symbiosis works tremendously well. With regards to the two gods of Isaura- one of them is the natural system; the lake or the wadi. The other is the man-made infrastructure that enables the use of the natural resource. One can not exist without the other. Both combined enable the prosperous life in Isaura. A depleted lake would not sustain a city, no matter how ingenious its infrastructure may be. The wadi alone, without a mechanism to manage its flows, can bring loss and devastation, with proper flood management and water harvesting it could be a source of desert livelihood.


Neve Tzedek, Tel-Aviv, Israel

Ein-Karem, Jerusalem, Israel

reading Utopia

Utopia / by Sir Thomas More. First published in Latin in 1516

"Well, the island is broadest in the middle, where it measures about two hundred miles across. It's never much narrower than that, except towards the very ends, which gradually taper away and curve right around, just as if they'd been drawn with a pair of compasses, until they form a circle five hundred miles in circumference. So you can picture the island as a sort of crescent."

"Aircastle is built on a gently sloping hill-side, and its ground plan is practically square. It stretches from just below the top of the hill to the river Nowater, two miles away, and extends for two miles and a bit along the river-bank... Right up to the town, and for several miles beyond it, there are strong tidal currents which change direction every six hours."

"The streets are well designed, both for traffic and for protection against the wind. The buildings are far from unimpressive, for they take the form of terraces, facing one another and running the whole length of the street. The fronts of the houses are separated by a twenty foot carriageway. Behind them is a large garden, also as long as the street itself, and completely enclosed by the backs of other streets. Each house has a front door leading into the the street, and a back door into the garden. In both cases they're double-swing doors which open at a touch, and close automatically behind you. So anyone can go in and out- for there's no such thing as private property."


More's description of Utopia starts with a detailed description of the (non) site and continues with an account of Utopos's manipulation of the peninsula to detach from the mainland and form an island. This first act in the making of Utopia is acknowledging the natural surrounding and situating in relation to it. An island as a self contained parcel can be fully controlled as a closed system. In More's Utopia, a perfect order (and therefore happiness) is achieved due to absolute control over all variables. Every person is accounted for, through the position of the Stywards whose job is to make sure no one is idling, while they should be working for the benefit of the community. all cities are built according to the same plan, all houses are identical, all Utopians wear the same dress. Utopia asserts only one plan as the right one. Under this plan, all must be equal, and to achieve that, similar. Utopia is the ultimate experiment in control, it allows no re-organization, self identity or free-will. In a non compromising world of no change, Utopia and Dystopia are two sides of the same coin.

Was More genuinely envisioning Utopia as the ideal society? Or was he using it to criticize his own society? Could Utopian thought be used as more than a rigid (unrealizable) system of rules? I would like to believe it can act as a vehicle of change, allowing people to envision a better way of life. However, in a (post) post-modern world Utopia must become a different thing altogether. It must incorporate contradicting visions, complexity and evolution. Perhaps 'Heterotopia' is a more fitting term, since it speaks of an 'other-place' or 'places of otherness', as opposed to 'Utopia' which is a 'non-place'.

spirit of a place

In his travels through the 'holyland' Mark Twain's impressions of the Negev desert were as follows:

· “There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent- not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles, here abouts, and not see ten human beings.

To this region one of the prophecies is applied: "I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and I will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.” No man can stand here and say the prophecy has not been fulfilled.”

The Innocents Abroad- Mark Twain

Seeing familiar places through a foreigner's eye is a transforming experience. A century and a half later, the Negev seems much the same. Traveling through it is always a point A to point B adventure, in which midway idling is an impossibility. Localized initiatives and settlements are scattered through out, yet still this is an unconquered/unrealized wilderness at Israel's very backyard. A backyard comprising approximately 60% of this much contested land.

constructing a desert mythology

Myth 1
To call Acacia a city, would be an unreasonable exaggeration in the eyes of a foreigner. To the naked eye Acacia consists only of four trees arranged around an unused well. Nevertheless, this is the oldest city in the world. It appears in any map ever depicting human civilization. In a universe of vast emptiness, Acacia is a spectacular event.