THE MOVING WATER
The
mighty Donau has a strong historical influence for the areas it runs
trough.
The route passes many capitals: Wien,
In
times past the rivers used to be an important traveling route for goods and
passengers. The cities were well protected of threats coming from the riverside.
Now traffic is mainly moving trough a network of asphalt surfaced
roads
and highways of cyberspace. The status and attention of urban
society as a whole has centralized itself around places where the potential consumers' eyes
are. Deprived of their original significance rivers have become something to look at occasionally through the living room
window
or to visit to have a refreshing walk at its shores.
Riversides
still carry marks of old times, but over decades the river
itself
has slowly changed from a subject to an object. Once natural lively bank areas
have
changed into wastelands, industrialized suburbs and
blocks of
concrete wich neglectingtinlly have turned their back to the waterfront. From the
river point of view the city is revealed as unprotected and naked.
Although man is the most adaptable creature of all, he easily loses this
virtue when his power is great enough to change the existing
conditions. It
seems that living next to nature has proven to be a
great
problem for politicians and future designers to solve. In the
public dicussion, more and more often, nature and environmentalists
turn out to be the enemy for
some
“necessary” projects to be carry out.
For
some people rivers still are an important part of wild and chaotic nature to be taken
care of. Even though we have to put up with living in squares and dealing with man-made
laws and
bureaucracy on a daily basis, we should remain able to get impressed by the versatility of nature and its
untouched
wilderness.