Table Of ContentTHE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN
The Routledge Handbook of Infrastructure Design explores the multifaceted nature of infrastructure through
the global lens of architectural history. Infrastructure holds the world together. Yet even as it connects
some people, it divides others, sorting access and connectivity through varied social categories such as
class, race, gender, and citizenship. This collection examines themes across broad spans of time, raises
questions of linkage and scale, investigates infrastructure as phenomenon and affect, and traces the
interrelation of aesthetics, technology, and power.
With a diverse range of contributions from 33 scholars, this volume presents new research from
regions including South and East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, North America, Western
Europe, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. This extraordinary group of authors bring close
attention to the materials, functions, and aesthetics of infrastructure systems as these unfold within their
cultural and political contexts. They provide not only new knowledge of specific artifacts, such as the
Valens Aqueduct, the Hong Kong waterfront, and the Pan-American Highway, but also new ways of
conceptualizing, studying, and understanding infrastructure as a worlding process.
The Routledge Handbook of Infrastructure Design provides richly textured, thoroughly evidenced, and
imaginatively drawn arguments that deepen our understanding of the role of infrastructure in creating
the world in which we live. It is a must-read for academics and students.
Joseph Heathcott is Chair of Urban and Environmental Studies at The New School in New York.
He has held visiting positions at Princeton University School of Architecture, the London School of
Economics, the University of Vienna, and Sciences Po, Paris. His most recent book is Capturing the
City: Photographs from the Streets of St. Louis (2016).
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN
Global Perspectives from Architectural History
Edited by Joseph Heathcott
Cover image: Galata Bridge, Istanbul, ca. 1900. Photochrome print courtesy
of the Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsc-06061
First published 2022
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Joseph Heathcott; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Joseph Heathcott to be identified as the author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Heathcott, Joseph, 1968- editor.
Title: The Routledge handbook of infrastructure design: global perspectives from
architectural history edited by Joseph Heathcott.
Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021036903 (print) | LCCN 2021036904 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367554910 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781032188393 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003093756 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Public works. | Architecture and society.
Classification: LCC TA145 .R756 2022 (print) | LCC TA145 (ebook) | DDC 624–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036903
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036904
ISBN: 9780367554910 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032188393 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003093756 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003093756
Typeset in Bembo Std
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
CONTENTS
List of Contributors ix
Acknowledgments xv
Infrastructure Designs: Dreaming and Building Worlds 1
Joseph Heathcott
PART I
Materialities 17
1 Kingship and the Rocks: Infrastructure and the Materiality of Empire 19
Braden Lee Scott
2 In Between Technology and Architecture: Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and the
French Royal Saline 30
Carmelina Martinez
3 Cement as Weapon: Meta-Infrastructure in the “World’s Last Cement Frontier” 40
Robby Fivez and Monika Motylin´ska
4 Notes from the Underworld: Excavation as Architectural Counter-History 51
Stefano Corbo
PART II
Embodiments 61
5 Virtual Gardens: Gendered Space in the History of Afghanistan’s
Telecommunications 63
Hannah Ahlblad
v
Contents
6 Mobilizing Labor for Infrastructure in Northeast Brazil, 1915–1932 76
Laura Belik
7 Everyday Living in Cairo’s City of the Dead 85
Reem Saad Sardina, Sherif Elfiki, and Ahmed El Antably
PART III
Natures 95
8 Dams, Lakes, and Water Sports: Building a Hybrid Landscape in Belgium’s
Eau d’Heure Valley, 1933–1987 97
Marie Pirard
9 Pedagogic Landscapes: Recreation, Play, and Danish Infrastructure Design 108
Margaret Birney Vickery
10 A Vast Demographic Void: Infrastructure, Ecology, and the Amazon 118
Catherine Seavitt Nordenson
PART IV
Flows 129
11 Visualizing the Valens Aqueduct in Early Modern Istanbul 131
Fatma Sarıkaya Işık and Pelin Yoncacı Arslan
12 The Airport Terminal: Circulation and Soft Power 142
Menno Hubregtse
13 The Porous Infrastructures of Somali Malls in Cape Town 153
Huda Tayob
PART V
City Making 163
14 Bridging the Bosporus: Mobility, Geopolitics, and Urban Imaginary in
Istanbul, 1933–1973 165
Sibel Bozdoğan
15 Brasilia, a Story Seen from the Roadside: Narratives of Landscape Transformation
and the Technological Sublime 176
Sued Ferreira da Silva
vi
Contents
16 More than a “Circulation Machine”: Recasting the Geographies of
Infrastructure in Modernist Urbanism 187
Mejrema Zatrić
17 Infrastructure as a Political Tool of Regime Legitimization in Doha, Qatar 198
Peter Chomowicz
PART VI
The Long Road 209
18 The Global Spread of Street Pavement Materials and Technology, 1820–1920 211
Robin B. Williams
19 Parallel Lines: Urban Expressways in the United States 222
Romina Canna
20 Good Neighbors and Automovilistas: Imaginaries of Hemispheric Travel along
the Pan-American Highway, 1936–1942 234
Dicle Taskin
PART VII
Power Fields 245
21 Nuclear Power Stations in Post-War Britain: Picturesque Landscapes for
the Masses 247
Laura Coucill and Luca Csepely-Knorr
22 TVA in the Desert: U.S. Development Projects in the Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan, 1951–1961 258
Dalal Musaed Alsayer
23 Shaped from Above: Cartographic Domination and U.S. Military Infrastructure
in 1950s Spain 269
José Vela Castillo
PART VIII
Liquid Worlds 281
24 Water and Infrastructure in Late Colonial Guanajuato 283
Luis Gordo Peláez
vii
Contents
25 Land Reclamation in the Making of Hong Kong 294
Charlie Qiuli Xue and Cong Sun
26 Bombay/Mumbai Waterfronts in the Hindi Film Deewaar [The Wall] (1975) 306
Vandana Baweja
Index 318
viii
CONTRIBUTORS
Hannah Ahlblad, Adjunct Professor of Architecture at University of San Francisco, holds an M.Arch
from the University of Texas at Austin where her research on cognitive mapping was funded by the
School of Architecture and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS). Her
work explores the transformation of architectural symbolism and geopolitics in the age of social media.
She is a project designer at Ann Beha Architects.
Dalal Musaed Alsayer is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Kuwait University. Her research lies
at the intersection of architecture, environment, and development in the context of Arabia during the
twentieth century. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Kuwait University, postgraduate degrees
from Columbia and Harvard, and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. She is the co-author
of Pan-Arab Modernism: History of Architectural Practice in The Middle East (2021) and is the co-founding
editor of Current: Collective for Architecture History and Environment (www.current-collective.org).
Ahmed El Antably is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at the Arab Academy for
Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport. His research interest is in the juncture of history, theory,
and technology in architecture. He has published Experiencing the Past: The Virtual (Re)Construction of
Places (2013), and many articles in international peer-reviewed journals and conferences.
Pelin Yoncacı Arslan is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Middle East Technical University
Department of Architecture, Turkey. In 2015, she obtained her PhD in Architecture and Urban Design
from UCLA. As an architect and an architectural historian, her research interests include historical
topography of late antique and Byzantine cities, and 3D visualization and mapping tools applied in
architectural history writing.
Vandana Baweja is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and the Sustainability Program
at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She obtained her PhD in architecture from the University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor. She was trained as an architect in New Delhi, India, and obtained a Master’s in
Architecture at the Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture in London, UK. She is the
co-editor of Arris: The Journal of The Southeast Chapter of The Society of Architectural Historians.
Laura Belik is a PhD candidate in architecture at University of California, Berkeley. Other
publications by Belik include “Spatial Transformation and Debates on Urban Democracy: The Case
of Minhocão Elevated Highway, São Paulo” in The Routledge Handbook of Planning Megacities in the
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