EMBRACING INFRASTRUCTURE / A RE-INTERPRETATION OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN AND ORNAMENTATION ON A  WATER TOWER IN TRANÅS

JENNIFER GINDAHL MASTER’S THESIS 2024

CHALMERS SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE / DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND CIVIL ENGINEERING

ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN / MATTER SPACE STRUCTURE

EXAMINER: DANIEL NORELL / SUPERVISOR: DANIEL NORELL



Jennifer Gindahl 
jennifer.gindahl@outlook.com

MSc. Architecture and Urban Design 					     2022-2024
	 Chalmers School of Architecture
		  Matter Space Structure 3: Before and After Building 
		  Housing Invention
		  Resistant Architecture: 1968 and beyond
		  Nordic architecture: Nordic Women
		  Matter Space Structure 1: Before Building

Internship OKIDOKI 						      2021-2022

BSc. Architecture 							       2018-2021 
	 Chalmers School of Architecture

AUTHOR



This thesis examines how architecture can establish relations 
between water infrastructures, society, and water consumers. 
Based on this examination, including a typological study 
of the development of water towers, as well as current 
architectural thinking around infrastructure, the thesis 
culmimates in the design of a new water tower for the city 
of Tranås, located on the border between Småland and 
Östergötland, a municipality that currently has no water 
tower. Water infrastructure was one celebrated through 
decoration and ornamentation because access to water could 
not be taken for granted. With time this has disappeared as 
water provision is taken for granted, something not good for 
climate or symbol of city which the design aims to solve.

Infrastructure is a precondition for cities to exist and modern 
infrastructure creates a huge maze of structure underneath 
the ground. Water infrastructure is life obtaining as a vital 
source of water and the infrastructure system can be used as 
a both including, excluding and colonial tool to bring together 
or separate parts of a society, this is taken in consideration 
during early design phase. Water towers are important for 
the society’s resilience against unpredictable happenings. Its 
purpose is to storage water that is enough to provide the city 

for a specific period. Water towers are low-tech buildings that 
only uses the laws of physics to function.

Taking cues from research presented in Infrastructural Love 
(Frichot et al., 2023), the thesis explores the significance a 
water tower can have from three perspectives, as a landmark, 
as a symbol, and as a salience for citizens and visitors of 
a city. How can architectural thinking be applied to water 
infrastructure objects and buildings? The research charts 
the emergence of water towers in the late 19th century until 
today, and investigates the hidden workings of the water 
infrastructure system as well as its objects and buildings. 

The design examines and discusses how understanding of 
architecture in relation to water infrastructure above ground 
can expand the subject of architecture and to the society.

ABSTRACT

KEY WORDS

Water infrastructure, hydraulic engineering, landmark, 
symbol, urban planning, salience, water towers typology



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BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION									         8

	 History of Water Infrastructure (in Sweden)							       8

	 Water Consumption in Sweden									         10

	 Infrastructural Love										          10

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION										         13

	 General Aim & specific purpose									        13

	 Thesis questions										          13

	 Delimitations										          13

THEORY											           14

	 Vocabulary										          14

	 Definition of City & Society									         14

	 Definition of (Water) Infrastructure								        14

	 (Water) Infrastructure and Architecture in an Urban & Society View					     14

	 Water Towers										          17

	 Other Water Infrastructure Objects & Buildings							       21

	 Landmarks, Monuments & Symbolism								        22

	 Architectural Work on Infrastructure								        25

CONTEXT OF THE PROJECT									         28

	 Tranås											           28

METHOD & TOOLS										          32

	 Analysis of Three Water Towers from Different Times							      36

	 Water Towers as a Typology									         37

	 A Water Tower Should...									         44

RESULT												           46

	 Architect Working with Water Infrastructure							       46

	 Functioning										          46

	 Infrastructural love										          46

	 Appearance										          46

TABLE OF CONTENT



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DISCUSSION											           66

	 Understanding Architecture in Relation to the Engineering Feature of Water Infrastructure			   66

	 Significance of Water Infrastructure’s Architecture to Society						      66

	 Interpreted Architectural Design in Water Infrastructure and the Affects It Can Get	 67

REFERENCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY	 68

Written sources	 68

digital sources	 69

Figures & pictures	 69



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HISTORY OF WATER 
INFRASTRUCTURE (IN 
SWEDEN)

The emergence of cities revolves around water (literally). 
Water is the most important factor in cities bloodstream and 
the water  has historically decide the place and space for 
defence, transports, trading and drinking. The start of Europe’s 
water infrastructure is said to be the Roman aqueducts. Rome 
was a city that was built on seven hills, and with the help of 
the topography they were able to develop both water supply 
and sewage systems in their city. This was around 140 BC. 
The sources of the aqueduct Aqua Appia were channelled 
about 15 km before reaching Rome, and the Aqua Marcia 
was about 94 km long, channelled in both tunnels and in 
air. Within 500 years of the first aqueduct, ten more were 
to be built. For the sake of the principle of flow through, the 
grand fountains of Rome were part of the technical principle. 
Frontius, the aqueduct curator (curator aquarum) carried out 
detailed work and administration that has been found after 
him. He had understood that the aqueducts required slopes 
to make them work (between 1:250 and 1:1000), and that 
the water pressure was proportional to the area of the cross-
section, but the velocity of the waters importance in relation 
to cross-section and flow, as well as a formula to determine 
the influence of pressure and friction, would first be figured 
out in the 19th century. Part of the late understanding of the 
formula could also be the fall of the Roman empire on the 
400-500 AD, where the Romans aqueducts were destroyed. 
It then took until the 16th century before humans once again 
tried water infrastructure out in society again (Bjur, 1988).

It was common that citizens of a Swedish village were part of 
the ownership of a private water well, but on the 15th century 
public wells got more common (Bjur, 1988). At the end of 
the 18th century water was accessed and organized through 
joint solutions for the “common good” in the small societies. 
Citizens supplied themselves using tubes made of wood. 
But when the industrialization came, the health of people 
got better, and the citizens started to move in to the city 
to get a job. Thanks to the industrialization, the population 
grew bigger, and the need for bigger water capacity from 
their invented water infrastructure grew. Around the same 
time, the question of sanitary conditions in the city arisen 
and the fear of pandemics was big, which also required a 
more technical solution when it came to water infrastructure. 
So, in 1860, the system of water distribution as we think of 
it today was invented and was one of the earliest piped 

infrastructures in the Swedish cities. From this technical 
solution, other inventions were created and used in the field 
of water infrastructure, such as water works with distribution 
to individual households, steam engine driven pump houses, 
water towers and installation of water toilets. At this time, the 
city was well separated from the rural area, and there was no 
infrastructural service outside the city centre to speak of. But 
gradually the entire water infrastructure got expanded. Going 
from being concentrated in the city centres in the turn of the 
19th/20th century, it had been expanded to the suburbs and 
more rural areas as well (Svedinger, 1989). As a consequence 
of the rise of industrial cities and citizens moving to the inner 
city to be a part of the city and its infrastructure, instead 
the nature, landscape and remote destination has become 
more exotic (Saari, 2015). The years between 1880 and 
1920 were the time of scientific hydraulic engineering, when 
many both theoretical and practical advances were made. 
Much of that engineering and the modern art of hydraulic 
engineering of that time is to some extent still in use today 
(Bjur, 1988). When the infrastructure was introduced there 
was a sense of pride around the infrastructural buildings 
that cities wanted to show off. But during modernism, the 
infrastructure became so stripped down in its aesthetics that 
it started to be considered ugly. This resulted in the hiding 
of many infrastructural buildings and objects underground 
(Zawieja, 2022). When access to clean, running water and 
good sanitation began to became the norm, more water 
toilets and baths were subsequently installed, something that 
the Million home program pushed for. When water toilets 
and baths became the norm in Swedish households, water 
consumption increased rapidly, and water treatment plants 
and pipes had to be expanded (Svedinger, 1989).

In almost every Swedish city, it is the municipality’s 
responsibility to govern the water infrastructure and all 
properties connected to it. Since 1983, water counts as food/
viands and since then, the state’s food service is the central 
supervising authority for the control and applicability of 
the water, something that the municipality is tasked with 
providing. This also means that it falls to the municipality to 
maintain the water infrastructure (Svedinger, 1989).

Helena Glantz, interviewed by Joanna Zawieja, claims that 
today, technical infrastructure and technical buildings are 
popping up like mushrooms. In the past they were hidden 
underground, but nowadays it’s lack of space underground 
and they are forced to be place above ground (Zawieja, 
2022). Today one could say we live in a “techno-city” where 
there is a blurred limit between the natural and the artificial. 

BACKGROUND/INTRODUCTION



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The water as a resource is natural, but the engineering 
structures are artificial. We are dependent on both and the 
separation for a citizen in everyday life is not something 
common to think of (Saari, 2015).

POSSIBILITY OF THE FUTURE

Saari points out the potential of being able to change 

attitudes towards sustainable water use and calls for designs 
that encourage cultural connections between infrastructure as 
a landscape and the public (Saari, 2015).

Figure 1 shows a group of soldiers gathered around a commonly owned water well 
(unknown, 1893), PDM



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WATER CONSUMPTION IN 
SWEDEN

Svedinger (1989) explains how, after the increasing water 
consumption in conjunction with the development of water 
infrastructure for sanitation during the Million program, the 
total water consumption per person has stopped increasing. 
Since 1995 the curve has instead started to decrease. This 
may be due to water-saving arrangements such as water-
saving taps and more efficient technology that requires less 
water. With the reduction in water consumption, problems 
have arisen as the pipe networks have been dimensioned for 
greater water volumes than today’s utilization corresponds to. 
This can cause stagnant water in the end pipes which leads 
to an unwanted growth of micro-organisms. Of all water use 
per year, approximately 2% is used for food and drink, while 
15-30% accounts for leakage. Despite the large amount of 
leakage, this is not considered a problem as the capacity 
can still handle it and the cost of a reparation are seldom 
not equal or lower than the cost of the leakage. Although, 
Svedinger (1989) notes that many water treatment plants are 
old and in need of upgrading, rebuilding and modernization 
so that they can be controlled by computers (Svedinger, 
1989). Looking at the statistic of water consumption together 
with the statistic of population in Sweden over time and 
calculate these together, one can conclude that the total 
water consumption has increased over time, and will probably 
continue to do so in the future (Statistiska Centralbyrån, 
2022)(Statistiska Centralbyrån, 2024).

INFRASTRUCTURAL LOVE

What would happen if we, instead of allowing the support 
to recede into the background as is done in most cases, in 
cities today, allow it to advance to the foreground, if we 
dedicate love and care to the support systems upon which 
our collective lives depend, Frichot et al (2023) ask. In that 
case, we need to shift the emphasis on moral objectivity and 
detachment to responsive and empathetic expressions of care 
towards the infrastructure. Infrastructural love requires radical 
engagement in the world. Infrastructure can benefit from the 
loving care of architecture in the aspect of a well working and 
sustained system that is more liable to life. This would achieve 
good relations between environments and technologies, 
natures and cultures, humans, non-humans and more-than-
humans. When talking about loving care, Frichot et al 
(2023) highlight that it is about proximity, mixing longing 

and intimacy. Care on the other hand can be subdivided 
in the distinction between justice (in terms of fairness and 
equality requiring consistent application) and relations of 
care (which responds to need and must be cultivated). That 
includes reducing the distance between the architect and the 
infrastructural urban planning of today (Frichot, 2023).

Frichot et al (2023) claim that love and affect are often 
associated with feelings and emotions. Focus is on the way 
affect arouses the sensing body, which concerns both human, 
more-than-human, non-human and techno-social. Affect has 
the capacity of a body to affect, and to be affected in turn, 
moving it, before the body has consciously recognized that it 
has felt something or that something has changed (Frichot, 
2023).

Frichot et al (2023) explains how the infrastructure systems, 
messiness could be seen as something perplexed and 
complicated, but it should not be seen as a threat. Instead, it 
should be seen as an opportunity that allows architecture to 
remain situated in the “real world”. Infrastructure is composed 
of people, time, politics, ethics, and other messiness on which 
it also depends on. Historically, this “infrastructural, perplexed 
messiness“ has shown itself when it comes to dealing with 
smell, for example, which has led to hands-on learning for the  
citizens. Today this messiness is less visible, and the “flush and 
forget”-technology does not encourage the same mindfulness, 
caring or responsibility as it once has, neither does it educate 
about the infrastructural systems. Today the systems really are 
infra – invisible, hidden below (Frichot, 2023).

Another aspect of the messiness is that the infrastructure 
contains out of non-movable bodies that never leave their 
designated space unless they are moved by living bodies, 
humans. One could say the city and society consists of living 
and non-living modern bodies that share this space. The 
obvious difference between the living and non-living bodies is 
that the non-living bodies are often iron, steel and stone and 
figurate as statuary and monuments, but these bodies also 
have needs that require care and are dependent on us to act 
in the world. Preservation and care are central to the urban 
infrastructuralization as the monuments of old infrastructural 
non-living bodies are “representatives of the progress of the 
present that will endure into the future” (Frichot, 2023).

DEALING WITH UTOPIA & ARCHITECTURAL 
STORYTELLING OF A BUILDING

Utopia is a way to imagine the result of a city when planning 



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it. Le Guin (2015) argues that the normal utopia’s and 
dystopia’s being written from a yang perspective, that means 
the masculine perspective, controlling perspective. Perhaps, 
she propose, we need to think more “yinly” to deal with utopia 
– “yintopia”. This would mean that instead of relying on 
control as the yang does, the yin would then instead perform 
“acceptance of impermanence and imperfection, a patience 
with uncertainty and the makeshift, a friendship with water, 
darkness, and the earth”, Le Guin writes. The two different 
“yintopia” and “yangtopia” would make two different stories, 
which allow for different sensitivities, problems, hopes and 
realities to work from (Le Guin 2015).

By being able to story tell architecture, a project or a 
built environment, the chance to create possibilities and 
potentialities, a thicken present is shaped. The stories can 
move from mouth to mouth (in form of words as well as marks 
and traces) of both humans and non-humans, designers, 
users, residents, birds, rivers, ornithologists, activists and many 
more. These live on the collective world-view, rather than the 
individual world-view (Frichot, 2023).



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GENERAL AIM & SPECIFIC 
PURPOSE

The general aim of the thesis is to understand the water 
infrastructure above ground of Tranås and to design a water 
tower connected to it. The purpose is also to understand the 
architecture of water infrastructure and its role in the city, 
how design can affect the city, and how a water tower can 
form a landmark.

THESIS QUESTIONS

How can the architecture of water infrastructure reveal and 
design for otherwise hidden layers of engineering features to 
create a better understanding and appreciation among the 
public?

What significance does water infrastructure’s architecture 
have to a society?

How has the water tower typology developed over time 
in Sweden, and how can this development be linked to 
infrastructures role in society?

DELIMITATIONS

•	 The investigation in the thesis is made from a city/
society view.

•	 The economical aspect is just briefly examined in the 
theory, to understand the complexity of infrastructure 
in society. It is not taken in consideration in the design 
proposal.

•	 The thesis focus is on the existing buildings and city in 
Tranås, not what will come to be built and therefore risk 
to change the existing circumstances.

•	 The thesis is limited to examining water infrastructure 
above ground. Water infrastructure below ground 
is briefly examined in the theory part to create a 
comprehensive understanding.

•	 The report will focus on the public distribution 
and consumption, not the private distribution and 
consumption.

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION



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THEORY

VOCABULARY

GROUND WATER

Groundwater is water extracted from soil or bedrock that has 
been completely water-filled, and with the help of the soil’s 
and rock’s purifying properties, the groundwater can maintain 
a relatively good quality right from the time it is collected. 
Sweden is a country with good access to groundwater 
and many municipalities take their drinking water from 
groundwater wells, but it is important to know that these 
sources can run out, if the withdrawal is greater than the 
supply of rainwater (Nationalencyklopedin, n.d.).

SURFACE WATER

Surface water is extracted from the surface of lakes, streams, 
seas, and wetlands (Nationalencyklopedin, n.d.).

RAW WATER
Raw water is water that has originally been surface water 
or groundwater and that, after undergoing some form of 
preparation or filtration in a water treatment plant, can be 
used as drinking water (Nationalencyclopedin, n.d.).

DEFINITION OF CITY & 
SOCIETY

A city is a geographic area that is recognized of a certain 
legal status or a certain type of land use, according to the 
National Encyclopaedia of Sweden (Nationalencyklopedin, 
n.d.). A society is a term for a group of individuals united 
by a network of social relations with a certain duration and 
continuity over time. Society is territorially bounded, and 
its social concepts are regarded as something external, a 
background of possibilities and limitations for the activities of 
free individuals. Within this society, people’s social perceptions 
can be seen as completely shaped by the social; her values, 
goals, world view and actions are products of socialization, 
internalization and control (Nationalencyklopedin, n.d.). 
Jonsson (2022) describes how we are always in this invisible 
medium of society, a medium that “fills the spaces between our 
bodies, creations and constructions”. Jonsson (2022) means 
that the society is what drives our desires and navigates our 
emotions, impulses, shapes and civilizes us and argues that 
the idea that society is the sum of its individuals is backwards 
and “stupid” and explains that it is not the individuals who 

create society but the society that creates the individuals. 
He explains it by drawing the parallel to how even the 
most energetic entrepreneur in the capitalist and neoliberal 
contemporary society, as children need their guardians who 
change the diapers, nourish, gives care and guidelines. So, a 
person cannot live as an individual and realize herself without 
a relationship with others, the society. Society is fundamental 
(Jonsson, 2022).

DEFINITION OF (WATER) 
INFRASTRUCTURE

According to the national encyclopaedia (n.d.) of Sweden, 
infrastructure is a system of facilities for production 
of energy, electricity, water- and sewage systems and 
telecommunications, but also included are roads and railways, 
airports and ports, power plants among fixed facilities such 
as airfields, oil pipelines and depots in a defence system 
(Nationalencyklopedin, n.d.). Hélène Frichot et al. (2023) 
describe infrastructure as “something both huge and hidden is 
conjured up, a dark and indistinct shadow (...). Conceptually, 
it is beneath structure, below architecture, under life as we 
know it, the infra signalling that it is lower in position, in value” 
(Frichot, 2023). Svedinger (1989) continues to explain that 
the concept of infrastructure has its origins in economists’ 
discussion of buildings and facilities as an economic basis 
for growth. Water infrastructure, but also any other kind of 
infrastructure, contains of three main components: the system 
has a purpose (a market) to fulfil, it has a source where media 
is generated or destroyed (hence, the system has a process) 
and the system has a distribution network (Svedinger, 1989). 
For normal citizens, infrastructure is something that just 
should function. It’s something we shouldn’t see or notice as 
it is just a system of function, nothing fancy. Infrastructure is 
both a symbol of permanence, a channeller of flows and a 
marker of modernity (Frichot, 2023).

(WATER) INFRASTRUCTURE 
AND ARCHITECTURE IN AN 
URBAN & SOCIETY VIEW

”Infrastructure for transporting and treating water forms the 
social and technical foundation of urban settlement, yet its 
design has been compartmentalized into a field oblivious to 
the experiential qualities of a city. The story of water links 



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The illustration shows the complexity of the water infrastructure system under 
ground, that is all hidden, but all very much part of the over-ground-life. The 
illustration is also showing an axonometric view of Tranås water infrastructure in a 
scale of 1:24 000 and 1:2400

EXISTING RESERVOIR 
INSERTED IN MOUNTAIN

WATER TREATMENT 
PLANT

SEWAGE TREATMENT 
PLANT

LAKE SOMMEN

WATER TREATMENT 
PLANT



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us to the past, and to the total ecosystem much bigger than 
our perception. It is the true connecting tissue of urbanity 
to natural processes, unraveling the artificial separation 
of nature, society and technology in the world of human 
experience” (Saari, 2015).

Infrastructure is also a way for societies or the state to 
articulate their social political imagination, as infrastructure 
provides guides of how it wants us to live in the city. It shapes 
territories, nudges, governs citizens movements and shaping 
behaviour, as well as the economical and health standard the 
society should access or be provided with. It supports the basic 
utilities of water, sanitary and so on. Therefore, it can include, 
move and liberate just as much as it can exclude, contain 
and subjugate (Frichot, 2023). Jonsson (2022) explains how 
societies are often described as tending towards different 
categories. These categories are different ways of dividing 
people into groups in which people are brought together or 
separated, integrated or segregated. Geographical places are 
often divided into homogeneous and heterogeneous spaces, 
simple or complex spaces. Resources must be distributed 
between these spaces. With the help of infrastructure, the 
society decides how it wants to change the relations to these 

spaces. For example to thicken or thin out certain interpersonal 
relationships. With this phenomenon, the population learns 
the divisions of society, divisions that establish what some 
have a share in and what others lack, what is equal and 
what is unequal. This in turn causes societies to split and 
parallel societies to form (Jonsson, 2022). Historically, Frichot 
et al (2023) demonstrate how infrastructure has been used 
as a colonial instrument for the demarcation of territories 
and the transformation of the soil into profitable land. The 
non-living bodies of infrastructure are the base of modern 
urbanization and they transform the citizens into modern 
bodies. Infrastructure is the socio-technological and spatio-
temporal glue that holds everything together in the city and 
is what can connect us to the earth (Frichot, 2023).

In today’s neoliberal politics, Frichot et al (2023) point 
out how capitalism, fast-paced technological development 
contributes to a most likely irreversible climate change. We 
are in a post-human conjunction time, where we have to hope 
we can learn from the contemporary, as this time demands 
a radical re-conceptualization of human and non-human 
relations, a rethinking that have to lead to other modes of 
practicing with environment-worlds. By using architecture 

Left photo, figure 2: Water Tower of Skara, built 1898 (unknown, 1898).

Right photo, figure 3: Water Tower of Hallsberg, built 1954 (Borg, 1960)

Here one can see the different level of decoration and ornamentation of water 
towers built before and after the modernisation.



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and design it is possible to create a resistance from within 
the neoliberal, market-driven spatial products and create a 
large infrastructural system that organize the world. This is 
by designing active form, not passive or mute, as it has the 
capacity of expressing a disposition or capacity that unfolds 
over time to shape space and relationships. To do this, we 
need to transgress the disciplinary boundaries between 
architecture, urban planning, engineering and geography to 
confront the spatial products of global infrastructures and 
reclaim their potential (Frichot, 2023).

Water is a resource we as human beings, but also more-
than-human and non-human others need to survive, and 
without it all of us would expire within a few days. To link 
back to the earlier paragraph on political justice and 
urban government on infrastructure, Frichot et al (2022) 
are concerned that we are heading towards a future with 
water scarcity, inequitable distribution and water wars. 
This is in addition to the non-infrastructural problems we 
associate water with today: drought, flood, and the failure to 
adequately distribute this life-sustaining resource. With this 
background, the mismanagement of water infrastructure can 
cause breakdown this medium for the equitable distribution 
of resources (Frichot, 2023).

THE STIGMA OF HAVING THE PUBLIC SO 
CLOSE TO THE PRIVATE

Saari (2015) clarifies how the efficiency of politics today “have 
overrun ecology, aesthetics and expression of meaning, and 
water has been stripped of its former symbolic values”. Water 
has become “virtual water” as it has disappeared in pipes 
underground and hidden in walls and lost the naturalness for 
instead becoming pure infrastructure (Saari, 2015). Although 
in an urban landscape, infrastructure is often the only built or 
constructed in the view, but with the lack of aesthetic values 
and aesthetic strategies, it’s often stigmatized with a negative 
connotation which in turn has led to the phenomenon “not 
in my backyard”. It is describes how this is a result of the 
modernists stripped design, which has led them to be 
considered ugly, together with the post war utopia of the 
home, where there should be an invisible connection between 
the urban and public, and the home and private (Pohlar, 
2010).

THE SECRECY OF WATER INFRASTRUCTURE 
OF THE COUNTRY

Water infrastructure is a very secretive part of society, with 

the argument that “Water supply is an important activity 
for society, and certain water supply can therefore be 
important for overall defence and to protect the security of 
the kingdom”. It is therefore very important that the public 
as well as potential enemies do not receive information that 
would allow them to cause harm or use the information for 
criminal activity or war, and thereby depriving us of our 
vital resource. The protection of the water infrastructure is 
therefore legislated by, “Offentlighets- och sekretesslagen 
(2009:400)”, ”OSL”, ”Säkerhetsskyddslagen (2018:585)” and 
”säkerhetsskyddsförordningen (2018:658)” (Svenskt Vatten, 
2022).

WATER TOWERS

“The water tower has a rare ability to bring the senses to life. 
Like monuments to the victory of civilization over darkness, 
they rise above city fabric and villa carpets and tell of a 
better society, rippling clean and full of life” (Bornstein, 2022).

FUNCTIONING

Water distribution can take place in two different types of 
water towers: high reservoirs where the reservoir is located 
on pillars and thereby enable to distribute water out to the 
city with its own pressure and ground reservoirs which acts 
as a high reservoir but are placed on a hill instead of pillars. 
Since the topography in the Swedish landscape in many 
cases does not have such large differences in level, the higher 
reservoirs are often built as towers, water towers, i.e. a closed 
reservoir placed at a high height above ground level. This 
means that water towers often stand out in the silhouette 
of their landscape and cityscape and form a landmark in 
the city. Kungliga Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen (1967) 
propose that the larger dimensions and height over the city 
a water tower has, the more demands the municipality and 
citizens should have on the aesthetics and design of the tower 
and their landmark. Although the aesthetics of the water 
tower is important, the primary purpose of the water tower 
is to be a levelling magazine and a spare magazine which 
also demands a good structural design (Kungl Väg- och 
Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen, 1967).

The water tower’s primary function is equalization of flow 
and reserve storage. Consumers’ water use varies throughout 
the day. Waterworks are designed to be able to maintain an 
even pressure throughout the day, which is not adapted to 



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consumer use. To solve this, water towers supply water when 
the use in the city is greater or smaller (Linder, Rain Chain, 
2017). When the system function, with help of electricity, 
a pump is pumping water from a water treatment plant, 
aqueduct or ground water well up through the tower, to fill 
the big reservoir (Korolija, 2023). Since water towers do not 
need electricity, they are part of the system that is essential 
for the community if the power goes out, or if another crisis 
breaks out (which means that the pump in water works and 
pump houses that are powered by electricity stop working) 
that means that water cannot be distributed in other ways. For 
this system to work, water towers are driven solely by the laws 
of gravity and therefore have their reservoir located at a high 
altitude, placed on a hill and/or on tall pillars (Linder, Rain 
Chain, 2017). The tower must be higher than the buildings it 
serves, for the laws of gravity to work (Korolija, 2023).

STRATEGIC PLACEMENT IN CITY

Water towers should preferably be on the opposite side of 
the water treatment plant in the city, so that approximately 
two thirds of the consumption is between the water treatment 
plant and the water tower (Persson, 2006). Andersson 
(1972) illustrate how this is hydraulically positive because the 
reservoir becomes a return reservoir where only the difference 
between the amount of water pumped from the waterworks 
and the amount of water directly consumed in the network 
is stored. This placement strategy explains why the more 
recently built towers often stand alone at the edge of a forest, 
while older water towers stand in the middle of the city, as the 
city has had time to “grow past them” since they were built 
(Andersson, 1972). 

Architects Lyth and Wingårdh (2022) describe how 
Sweden’s population is growing, which requires an expansion 
of the infrastructure (Lyth & Wingårdh, 2022). Rather 
than extending an existing water tower, it is hydraulic and 
pressure-wise easier to build a new water tower. The new 
water towers placement in the city will depend on the 
existing towers placement and the pressure they will create 
in the infrastructural system together (Kungl Väg- och 
Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen, 1967). From the point of view of the 
cityscape, it is important that the tower has such a shape and 
location that serves as a meaningful land and recognition 
sign from both land, sea and air. This is thus not only for those 
who live in the city but also for passers-by (Andersson, 1972). 
High towers often become a social symbol and a central 
benchmark that has overtaken church towers as a symbol. 
The location and design of the towers has therefore become 

an urgent task for architects and engineers (Andersson, 1972). 
Water towers are often massively out of human-scale (Pohlar, 
2010).

In Sweden, lakes are used as a source of raw water, but the 
capacity that the lakes possess is often only used to a fraction. 
With a strengthened water infrastructure, it is possible to 
increase the capacity and secure the water supply (Bornstein, 
2022). 

ARCHITECTS’ CHALLENGE WITH WATER 
TOWERS AS AN ART OF BUILDING

Unlike, for example, residential architecture, a water tower 
has a relatively simple program. It is not filled with functional 
measures, standards, and rules, but “simply” requires that 
several thousand cubic meters of water is lifted many meters 
up in the air. The challenge in this particular architecture is 
to create as much a sculpture as architecture, engineering 
art, a landmark, a monument and a symbol of the city. The 
water tower must have a strong character and silhouette 
from both far and up close, for the interested population who 
make their way closer to the tower (Bornstein, 2022). But 
technical infrastructure buildings can be much more than just 
a part of a large network. They can also be part of the built 
environment and, like all other buildings in the community, 
contribute to the urban space. But water infrastructural 
buildings are objects of protection and must not include the 
population in a way so that the inside and the function can 
be understood (Zawieja, 2022).

CHARACTERISTICS & GEOMETRY

Common to all water towers reservoirs are that they are 
rotationally symmetrical around a vertical axis. There are not 
many water towers that have a reservoir with edges as it is not 
good for the hydraulic pressure inside of the reservoir  (Kungl 
Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen, 1967). For pedagogy, one 
could divide a water tower into two parts: substructure and 
superstructure. In the substructure, the supporting structure 
is usually found, often in the form of a cylinder, column or 
a combination of these. There is also room here for shut-off 
devices and vertical communication in the form of stairs and 
possibly an elevator. In the bearing structure is the reservoir 
and stairs. In some cases, you can find a restaurant, cafe 
or viewing platform here, but this is not so common. In the 
superstructure is the shell, placed over the vital parts of the 
water tower. The shell rarely has a function for the water 
tower to be able to function. Belonging to a water tower 



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Figure AD: The building of Söndrums’ Water Tower, year 1967 (unknown, n. d.)

Here one can see the substructure, superstructure and construction of a water 
tower. The shaft is built first and the construction is to form the mold that the 
reservoir is to be casted in.



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are also various pipelines (infrastructure) and ventilation 
system, usually placed in a ventilation chamber under the 
bottom of the reservoir slab, on the water towers outside or 
underground. Water towers often have an appealing shape, 
beautiful construction, and a good material economy (Kungl 
Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen, 1967)

MATERIALS

Concrete has come to dominate as the construction material 
of water towers. Steel has also been used to some extent 
since the latter part of the 20th century, which could mean a 
renaissance for steel as a construction material in water towers, 
but that is probably not something that can be claimed to any 
great extent so far. There are also examples of towers made 
of bricks, plaster, lightweight concrete or perforated concrete, 
but these materials are less used today because of the risk of 
damage in the material. The façade material is preferably 
one that is maintenance free, therefore concrete is often the 
choice. To make the concrete more appealing, painting with 
silicon paint is often made, or a perforation in the concrete 
wall to create some kind of ornamentation. The reservoir itself 
is, in almost every case, built of concrete, and very seldom 
steel.  (Kungl Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen, 1967). The 
materials from which the water pipes are made are selected 
regarding corrosion, service life and water quality. The older 
lines were made of cast iron, these have over time begun to 
be supplemented by PVC lines, which by 1989 account for the 
largest part of all pipes (Svedinger, 1989).

DEVELOPMENT OF APPEARANCE

Between 1890 and 1920, the dimensions of the superstructure 
were often made relatively narrow and small, and then the 
cylindrical shape of the substructure was made to have the 
same diameter as the superstructure, giving the impression 
of a tall cylinder. Around the turn of the century, this volume 
was often given the appearance of an old castle, which 
was reinforced by buildings located at its foot. In the latter 
half, the romanticism was lost and the cylinder took on a 
rawer expression, where more honest attempts were made 
to show the function of the water tower and distinguish the 
superstructure and substructure in appearance. With the 
development of industries, almost every major community got 
a water tower during this time (Andersson, 1972).

Between 1920 and 1950, low water reservoirs on high ground 
are believed to be more common. This is a conclusion drawn 
because of the few water towers built during this time 

(Andersson, 1972).

After the 1950s, however, the construction of water 
towers increased in the country. From this time, the water 
towers got much bigger than they have been before 
(Nationalencyklopedin, n.d.). The most common design 
during this time is a tall cylinder standing on several pillars 
in a wreath. In 1957, a revolution took place in water tower 
construction when Svampen in Örebro was built. Svampen 
was built in a tension-reinforced construction, which allows the 
concave shape around the vertical axis and also provides a 
favourable water pressure in the reservoir. After Svampen, the 
superstructures of the water towers that were built henceforth 
took on increasingly bold forms, and Andersson (2022) 
sees two directions that stemmed from this insight: that the 
superstructure and the substructure visually continue into 
each other - they look like mushrooms, or the superstructure 
and substructure are visually separated by a looks like a 
“saucer on a stick” where a giant bowl rests on slender pillars 
(Andersson, 1972).

BUILDING METHODS

The first thing that is built on a water tower is usually 
reservoirs that are shaped and cast on the ground. This 
is then lifted successively with a jack, gradually after the 
substructure is completed. After this, a sliding mold casting 
takes place where the outer shell is created, alternatively, 
prefabricated concrete elements are lifted into place. Most 
common is the use of rational construction methods such as 
slip-form casting, pre-stressing, cranes and hydraulic lifting 
technology. In some cases, form-work has been used, but this 
is not as safe to use as there is a risk of deformations, and 
even very small deformations can cause cracks in the freshly 
poured concrete. After the concrete construction, a decorative 
exterior cladding can then be put in place, if wanted (Kungl 
Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen, 1967).

For a water tower to be operable, it is required that the water 
maintains a temperature of between 0 degrees and +15 
degrees Celsius. This is usually not a problem for water towers 
with larger reservoirs and sufficient water circulation, while 
water towers with smaller reservoir volumes require thermal 
insulation and possibly electric heating. Sandwich walls are 
a common construction type for water towers, where any 
thermal insulation (if there is any) is placed on the inside 
of an external concrete construction, with eventual facade 
material attached to the outside. The material of the eventual 
insulation can be glass wool, mineral wool, cork or foam 



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plastic (Kungl Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen, 1967).

Modern water towers require advanced production techniques, 
which in turn require great care for construction and work 
planning (Kungl Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen, 1967). A 
newer technique today is to use two reservoirs which enable 
the water to circulate more and therefor stay fresh and have 
a better quality (Lyth & Wingårdh 2022).

To be able to measure the needed size of a water tower, one 
need to know the number of citizens that the tower need to 
be able to provide with water. In cases where the consumption 
per person and day is unknown, one can assume the water 
consumption is 30 litres per person and day. The industries 
do also have to be dimensioned, but in cases where the 
numbers are unknown or uncertain, it can be estimated to 
estimated based on the plot area: 0.1 l/s and hectares. In 
addition to this, other water consummating activities have to 
be considered, such as the extinguishing water consumption 
with fire hydrants and special occupations such as hospitals 
have to be considered in the dimensioning of the water tower. 
After calculating the consumption per day in the society, 
it should be multiplied with three, for it to last three days 
(Persson, 2006).

WATER TOWER AS A LANDMARK & SYMBOL

Water towers also have great significance for the city as 
a landmark and symbol of the importance of clean water. 
During the last century, the function of the water tower to 
transport water has been in focus, which has meant that 
the architecture and design have fallen into oblivion and 
the older, appreciated towers have been supplemented by 
simpler constructions which, even today, do not receive the 
same attention as the older towers in the city. Linder (2017) 
highlights how the respect for the clean water distribution is 
taken for granted these days and that there will be problems 
in the future with periodical drain (Linder, 2017). When the 
visibility of infrastructure is being removed, the experience of 
clean water is taken away from the urban realm, and left is 
the invisible maintenance network – the hidden city (Saari, 
2015).

WATER TOWER COMBINED WITH OTHER 
OPERATIONS

As mentioned in earlier paragraph, the secrecy of water 

infrastructure is high. This means that if other operations are 
combined with a water tower that is in function, the other 
operations may not tell anything about how the water tower 
functions (Svedinger, 1989). Although this, there exist other 
operations together with water towers. Svampen in Örebro 
has a restaurant and sky bar with performances (Örebro 
kommun, 2023). One of the water towers in Malmö, at 
Botildenborgsvägen, was built to be a viewpoint in the city to 
the citizens (Skånska vattentornssällskapet, n.d.). Kaknästornet 
in Stockholm works as a water tower, as well as  a TV and 
radio mast, an observation terrace and a restaurant with a 
spectacular view of Stockholm (Royal Djurgården, n.d.). The 
water tower in Kalmar was built with a restaurant and view 
over Öland, Kalmarsund and the newly built bridge reaching 
to Öland, with the expectation that the tower would be a 
tourist attraction. After a few decades when the expectations 
wasn’t reached, the operations other than the water tower 
facility was dismantled and the tower no longer became a 
place for the public (Wikipedia, 2023).

OTHER WATER 
INFRASTRUCTURE OBJECTS & 
BUILDINGS

WATER TREATMENT PLANT

A water treatment plant is a facility where groundwater or 
surface water is made to drinkable water. This should not be 
confused with a sewage treatment plant, which is a facility 
that cleans wastewater. In this facility, the water is prepared 
so that it maintains the quality specified by the requirements. 
This is usually done through filters, but chemical and 
biological processes can also take place in a water plant. It is 
also important to protect the water against possible corrosion 
in water pipes (NE vattenverk).

PUMP STATIONS

Around 1850, people faced the choice of whether to continue 
supplying the city with water in the natural way, or whether 
to dare to introduce technical solutions. Pumping stations with 
steam engines became the answer to the courage of the time, 
and the possibility of pumping out even more water became 
possible. This also made it possible to build higher heights 
and build on mountains, as the water with natural pressure 
(from water towers) cannot travel from high to high or low to 



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high. The natural pressure requires large differences in height 
from high to low (Bjur, 1988).

FIRE POSTS AND HYDRANTS

A fire post is a connection device that fire engines can 
connect a hose to if they need to fill up their car or put out a 
fire. The fire hydrant is mounted to the water infrastructural 
system underground. In Sweden, fire posts are usually 
placed in wells underground, but in other countries they are 
commonly designed as small pillar-like objects above ground 
(Nationalencyclopedin, n.d.). To prevent the problem of fire 
in cities around the turn of the century 1800-1900, the urban 
standard was to arrange fire hydrants every 100 meters (Bjur, 
1988).

WATER POSTS

A water post is a tap point for collecting drinking water, 
irrigation or fire fighting and it is collected from the water 
infrastructural system underground. The appearance of water 
posts differs, and they can be designed both as objects above 
ground or as wells (unknown, 2019).

PUBLIC TOILETS

A shared and public place in form of lavatory pan (rooms) 
to carry out their needs on has exists since 70 B.C.. in Rome. 
In Sweden these has for a long time been in form of “dass” 
(Utbildningsradion, 2005).

The modern public toilets is a public space where you do 
something very private. Because of the scarcity of private 
feeing of these rooms, they are often considered to have bad 
hygiene and are therefore also treated bad and often get  
vandalised (Utbildningsradion, 2005).

DRINKING WATER FOUNTAINS

A drinking water fountain is designed to spout water without 
using a drinking vessel. Therefore, they are designed as rays 
and can therefore be compared to a fountain. Water can 
either be designed to spray all the time like fountains do, or 
to be started with a button. There are examples of both more 
and less artistic designs of drinking fountains, where some are 
sculptural, and others are simply designed from steel and the 
focus is on its function (unknown, Wikipedia, 2021).

LANDMARKS, MONUMENTS & 
SYMBOLISM

DEFINITION AND RECOGNITION OF A 
LANDSCAPE

When moving through a piazza, one moves through enclosed 
forms, but the further out into the periphery of the city one 
go, the more it is like moving through a landscape of vast 
expansive texture – a mega-texture, not seldom a commercial 
landscape (Izenour et al., 1977).

Landscape comes from the Dutch word landschap in the 
16th century. It used to demarcate land, but with time it 
has become a word that describes a way to see space from 
distance.  Landscape art got its name and to be developed 
until the 19th century. Landscape art is art of a visual 
panorama, which harmonize with the definition of landscape. 
Nowadays, the term landscape has come to include more 
than just the landscape of nature, and do now include urban 
and industrial spaces as well as representations of visual 
cultures (Saari, 2015). Although, Pohlar (2010) stresses that 
every landscape whether it is natural or urban, sensational or 
peaceful, leave an image in our memory. These images and 
memories will be mixed with symbolic meaning, emotion, and 
aspirations and all together create a richer understanding of 
the city. These experiences will then be part of the citizens 
individual actions, attitudes, motivations, feelings, and love 
towards the city. Therefore landscape plays an important role 
(Pohlar, 2010).

DEFINITION AND RECOGNITION OF A 
LANDMARK

”A landmark is a salient geographic entity that marks a 
locality and can be used for orienting or navigating in the 
environment”, says Peters et al (Peters, Wu, & Winter, 2010). 
In the article “Apollo’s 2000 Theater Owners Want Landmark 
Designation To Maintain Its ‘Glory’” Stell, who is restoring 
a building explains the importance of having a landmark 
recognition of the building in his area. He clarifies how it 
would make it an anchor and catalyst that draw people who 
could spend money in their business district (Savedra, 2023).

Landmarks attracts attention from human eye, and the 
feature’s salience is mainly measured by the categories (Li, 
Zhang, Fang, Lu, & Shaw, 2014) (Peters, Wu, & Winter, 
2010):



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1. American fire hydrant
2. Public toilet
3. Swedish fire hydrant
4. Pump station, built in modern time
5. Drinking water fountain
6. Drinking water fountain
7. Swedish fire hydrant brought up and used from 
underground
8. Pump station, built 1896
9. Water Treatment Plant

1.

4.

7.

3.

6.

9.

2.

5.

8.



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•	 Visual - attraction of a feature in a local environment, 
meaning size, colour, shape, visibility and singularity, or 
sharp contrast with its surroundings.

•	 Semantic - the significant meaning to the public, cultural 
and historical significance.

•	 Structural - the prominent spatial location in the 
structure of an environment, which can be affected by 
its position along a route.

But studies have shown different features or categories 
attract different amounts of attention from the eye. What 
is revealed in studies is that the feature’s size is prominent, 
unorthodox shape (when feature is close to the centre of 
visual field, if the feature is far away the same effect was not 
observed), protruding shape compared to the surrounding 
shapes, eccentricity, as well as explicit marks (such as texts) 
led to shorter recognition time for the eye. Because of the 
attention the landmark takes, people tend to use landmarks 
in route descriptions and that in turn can shorten learning 
time for a new way and give better response in way-finding 
tasks. Although the findings of different feature’s recognition 
time for landmarks, the author also concludes that cultural 
or historical characteristics have very much influence on 
the recognition of a landmark and tend to be presented 
on pictures, word cues and to get a role of target features 
environment (Li, Zhang, Fang, Lu, & Shaw, 2014). Many of 
these categories are independent from one another, but the 
authors explains that the measuring of colour of an attribute 
is the hardest to formalize, as it depends on lightning, 
viewing distance, surrounding colours and texture of the 
feature (Peters, Wu, & Winter, 2010). Another factor that 
has developed by time to be hard to adapt landmarks to is 
the complex setting of the new landscape of big spaces, high 
speeds, and complex programs (Izenour et al., 1977).

A landmark can have high impact on an environment and the 
Eiffel Tower, for example, is described “as a deeply meaningful 
object within the landscape of Paris. The tower is omnipresent 
in the mind and inseparable from any contemplation of the 
city. The important element is the ability to visit the tower 
and ascend to its viewing platform. The object as a landmark 
within the city and at the same time provides a panorama 
of the city. The panorama is far more meaningful than the 
ability to view. The understanding of the city in this way 
engages memory and familiarity. This act of engaging the 
city in this way solidifies the experience within the mind of the 

dweller”. ”The Eiffel Tower is an excellent historical example 
of the artistic expression of industry and technology. Second, 
it is the formal expression of innovative strategies and marks 
a fundamental turning point in architectural imagery as a 
result of advanced industrial and technological changes. 
Third, the image of the Eiffel Tower has proven to be a lasting 
international cultural icon that creates a recognizable image 
of place even for those who have never physically visited the 
city. And finally, the tower’s lack of public function provides 
some interesting insight on the relationship between public 
use, image, and value.” (Pohlar, 2010).

DEFINITION OF AND RECOGNITION OF A 
SYMBOLISM

Within symbolism, the goal is not to reproduce reality 
photographically, but to capture the soul of things in art, often 
with connections that are religious, personal or literary. The 
aim is for the dark, the mysterious and the incomprehensible 
instead of the logical (Nationalencyklopedin, n.d.). There 
has been a documentation of a declaim of symbolism in art 
and architecture during 20th century, supported by Modern 
architects. Symbolism was seen by them as the declaration 
of content communicated through implication to previously 
known forms. It was not a way the modernists aimed, but 
instead of symbolism they wanted to communicate through 
the inherent, physiognomic properties of the form (Izenour 
et al., 1977).

The drawing architect relies on the literature and idioms of his 
own day, and the architect can choose to imitate if it sits well 
with him, or by parody, if it doesn’t. Symbolism of a building 
is read through “associations and past experience; It provides 
layers of meaning, beyond the ‘abstract expressionist’ messages 
derived from the inherent physiognomic characteristics of the 
forms - their size, texture, colour, and so forth. These meanings 
come from our knowledge of technology, from the work and 
writings of the Modern form givers, from the vocabulary of 
industrial architecture, and from other sources” (Izenour et 
al., 1977).

THE RECIPROCITY OF ART AND SOCIETY

The notion of ‘staging surfaces’ discusses all the different 
scales a horizontal plane includes all the way from sidewalk 
to the entire infrastructural matrix. Urban relationships play 
a much more significant role than spatial forms when it 
comes to the staging. What Saari (2015) concludes is the 
collective imagination as the engine of design and planning 



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and landscape urbanism as a speculative thickening of the 
world of possibilities, an important part of urban environment 
(Saari, 2015). Art and design know how to make society 
visible and a meaningful place, therefore art and design 
have always had a central place in all human societies. One 
can see this when studying different places throughout the 
ages, and note how significant places are decorated more 
than others, this to manifest what holds the citizens together. 
Art requires social context and a society requires aesthetic 
representations. It is through art that society represents itself 
(Jonsson, 2022).

ARCHITECTURAL WORK ON 
INFRASTRUCTURE

Infrastructure is the technical solution to a sector-wide and 
interdisciplinary problem, which has required and continues to 
require integration of skills from different fields of knowledge 
- architects, hydraulics, designers, production technicians 
and concrete and steel experts (Svedinger, 1989). The most 
well-known water towers in the country are all examples 
of good cooperation between these professions (Kungl 
Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen, 1967). The architectural 
aspect gets especially clear when the pragmatic work of 
the engineer is insufficient, and the imaginative construction 
of supportive spaces and relations from the architects is 
needed. Altogether, all infrastructure of a city constitutes a 
collection of built objects, and an admixture of architectural 
and infrastructural prowess. What is most common to think 
about as architectural infrastructure is Roman aqueduct 
which is truly an art of architecture and engineering in one. 
Another good example of architectural infrastructure is the 
Indigenous Australian Eel Trap is an artful infrastructural 
object. But other, more everyday-examples of architectural 
infrastructure are waiting rooms and warehouses, call centres 
and parking lots, toll booths, public toilets, garbage dumps, 
slaughterhouses and electrical stations (Frichot, 2023).

Historically, infrastructure has been excluded and repressed 
when planning urban environments. This is seen in for example 
architectural drawings, and how infrastructural buildings and 
objects are placed in the city - out of sight and separated 
from the landscapes of our everyday lives (Frichot, 2023). 
Caldenby (2022) explains that planning processes and 
landscapes are fragmented within architecture, in a negative 
sense, and goes on to explain how today we see the global 
economy being fragmented (Caldenby, 2022). Frichot et al 
(2022) posit that the work of architects is what maintains 

The drawing is showing part of the infrastructure in Vasastaden, Gothenburg, and 
the schematic symbols that lack design information in this 2D drawing.

Lightning post

Well

Underground facility

0 Sc
al

e 
1:2

00
0

25

50
(m)

N



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the relations between peoples, places, and things, when at 
its best, but is in this case also, a very political tool. Therefore 
the architectural work in urban environments cannot get lost 
(Frichot, 2023).

WATER INFRASTRUCTURE ON DRAWINGS

Water infrastructure is often a collection of small objects in 
the city and are not easy to show in a plan in scale 1:1000, 
which city maps often are. So, a question that arises is how 
to show all objects fluxes and flows, or seasonal variation, or 
change with time on a map or drawing (Izenour et al., 1977).

UNDERSTAND THE PAST

Infrastructural systems are part of the environmental 
humanities, which is a field that needs the understanding 
of ecological and social challenges facing all life on 
earth. To understand, the architect must deal with and 
understand former approaches to the humanities to best 
address contemporary climate emergencies beyond human 
exceptionalism. This involves looking at the distributed 
interventions and complex connections that we have, to study 
the relational architectural ecologies to be able to develop 
them. The world is constant and radically changing around 
us, and by studying the past theories and methodologies, it’s 
easier to cope with the contemporary challenges. This involves 
studying natural and constructed environments around us, the 

Figure 4: Pierre Patte: Section of a Street. From Mémoires sur les objets les plus 
importants de l’architecture, 1769 (Wikipedia, 2021).

The section is considered to be the first made on infrastructure in a city, as part 
of a spatial realm. The representation is especially interesting as Patte is placing 
the infrastructure and street in relationship to building interiors, and therefore 
also established the view of the city as a collection of representational forms 
(Saari, 2015).



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environments in which we depend (Frichot, 2023). Izenour 
et al. (1977) emphasizes that by learning from the existing 
landscape, the architects get a good base for being and 
working revolutionary, the architects need to question how 
we look at things. But today, architects are out of the habit 
of looking non-judgemental at the urban environment around 
us, and the modern architecture is more progressive, trying to 
be too utopian, not adjusted enough to the existing conditions 
or enhancing the urban environment it is in (Izenour et al., 
1977).

MAKE INFRASTRUCTURE VISIBLE

To make infrastructure more visible, which can encourage 
mindfulness, caring or responsibility, it is also a pedagogical 
opportunity which in turn reacquaints us with wider 
communities of life. At the same time it informs us about 
the ecological consequences of our activities (Van der Ryn 
& Cowan, 1996). What we focus on and bring to attention 
as architects will also be the subject of our communication 
and our design, which involves big responsibility (Saari, 2015).

INVOLVE COMMUNITY

Another method the authors propose is to involve the public of 
the city and can contribute to sociocultural imagination which 
can offer a cultural terrain for collective dreaming, aspiration, 
collaboration, and negotiation. This can be explored in an 
educational context where focus can be to reclaim radical 
imaginaries for the future, based on architectural histories and 
learnings from the public common (Frichot, 2023). Izenour et 
al. (1977) describes how involving the community is a “socially 
desirable activity to the extent that it teaches us architects to 
be more understanding and less authoritarian in the plans we 
make”. It is part of civic and cultural enhancement (Izenour et 
al., 1977). By working with infrastructure as an architect, it is 
also possible to expand the client’s understanding, knowledge 
and ambition for architecture. But for this to be possible, an 
understanding of the infrastructure system is also required 
from the architect. Regarding infrastructure, the technical 
function is as important as the aesthetic function in the city 
(Zawieja, 2022).

TODAY’S ECONOMICAL URBAN CLIMATE.

Space today is sacred, and Izenour et al. (1977) claims it 
has been that way since Modern architecture took place. 
This means painting, sculpture and literature should not take 
up any space or be “spatial characteristics” in architecture. 

These are separate subjects and should not be confused. 
Architectures form should be defined by the service of 
program and structure. If these were to be mixed, this would 
also mean mixing of styles and media, which in turn could 
evoke associations and romantic allusions or programmatic 
symbolism, like older architecture than the Modern does. 
At that time, it was considered that the artistic part of 
architecture enriched the meaning and contained messages 
beyond their ornamental contribution to architectural space. 
In Modern architecture, space is sacred, but as a paradox 
styles and signs are considered anti-spatial, disconnected 
from architectural buildings, and communication is ranked 
over space and dominates it. But the signs of Modern 
architecture only contains the most necessary messages and 
communication. This philosophy says that architecture defines 
very little, and a disconnected sign can say more. Therefore 
the architecture is built cheaper. Another paradoxal thing 
about Modern architecture is how program is the main 
thing that should form the architecture, no extras, to make 
it cheaper, but at the same time other objects like swimming 
pools are allowed to take place even though they are more 
symbolic than useful (Izenour et al., 1977).



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TRANÅS

Tranås is a town consisting of 18 800 people and an area of 
403 km² land, which is on the border between Småland and 
Östergötland and belongs to Jönköping County. Tranås has 
arisen north-west to the lake Sommen, whose river Svartån 
flows out of Sommen and meanders through Tranås in a 
south-westerly direction. Tranås city centre is concentrated 
just north of Svartån, and Svartån acts to some extent as 
a barrier to the other side of the city where there is a lot of 
industry, especially in north-eastern Tranås (NE, n.d.).

Lake Sommen is easily accessible from the city of Tranås. It is 
a lake that has many lobes, an irregular shape, and a large 
number of islands and islets. Lake Sommen is a nutrient-poor 
lake, which means it has clear water. This makes it a good 
surface water source. Its water surface is 132 km2 and is 145 
meters above sea level, and its deepest point is 53 meters 
below the surface. Sommen’s catchment area is 1651 km2 and 
consists mostly of forest land with a smaller proportion of bog 
and crop-land. On the water’s inflow path to the Sommen, it 
is purified through the sand and soil it flows through.

In 1874, Tranås became part of the Eastern main line, which 
runs through the centre of the city. The city grew up around 
this, and on the east side of the railway a grid of streets was 
laid out. Tranå’s main street that runs through what is today 
the centre of Tranås, which was designed as a wide tree-lined 
boulevard. When Tranås was provided with a railway, the 
population went from 990 inhabitants in 1881 to 5,000 in 
1919. From the beginning, Tranås was an industrially oriented 
town with a focus on fur goods and skins as well as furniture, 
carpentry, sporting goods. Nowadays, Tranås is a city with 
a differentiated business life, with a strong furniture industry 
(NE, n.d.).

In 1899, Tranås’ water spa was built, which is now run as a 
Swedish National Insurance Agency hospital and conference 
centre. Along the tree-lined boulevard is the city square, where 
the city hotel with its library is located. Along the Somme lies 
the city hall, erected in 1953 (NE, n.d.).

Tranås has a hilly and varied landscape with height differences 
of more than 100 metres. Currently, Tranås does not have a 
water tower, but instead has a reservoir embedded in the 
mountain at Höganloft, in the north-western part of the city. 
This place is located high, which allows for self-fall from this 
point out to the rest of the city. The exception, however, is 
Tostås, a residential area located in the southern part of 

CONTEXT OF THE PROJECT

Tranås. This area is high above the height of the reservoir 
in the landscape, which requires booster pumps to give the 
costumers access to water, which means that this area is not 
covered by the resilience and protection that a high reservoir 
should provide (Jan Samsson, personal communication 2024-
02-08).

According to Perssons (2006) way of dimensioning the 
volume needed on a reservoir, Tranås would need a reservoir 
of 3700 m3, with its 18 800 citizens. This would enable Tranås 
to grow and supply even its residents on a higher elevation 
with water in emergencies, as well as helping surrounding 
municipalities (Persson, 2006).

Top picture: The entering to the existing reservoir of Höganloft in Tranås

Lower illustration: Tranås is marked on the map of Swedisn



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0 Sc
al

e 
1:2

8 
00

0

0,5

1
(km)

N

Sommen (lake)

Illern (lake)sewage treatment plant

Svartån (river)water treatment 
plant

main street 
of Tranås

Toståshigh reservoir 
embedded in 
the rock



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natural

filtration

filtration 
through bottom 
sediments and 

soil layers

slow filtration through 
sand

&
biological purification 

stored in a 
4000 m3 
reservoir

only concerns residents 
of Tostås (north west of 
Tranås) that lives on a 

too high elevation 

GROUND WATER SOURCE

LAKE SOMMEN

TRANÅS WATER TREATMENT PLANT

HIGH RESERVOIR INSERTED IN 
MOUNTAIN AT HÖGANLOFT

CONSUMER

PUMPSTATION



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195 meters above sea level - the height at which a water tower can be placed if 
it is 40 meters high

235 meters above sea level - the height at which the reservoir needs to be located, 
if the reservoir is not to stand on a structure

The marked area on the maps are the surfaces below the specified elevation The 
various drawings show:

145 meters above sea level - the lowest surface in Tranås, at the level of the 
Sommen and Svartån

185 meters above sea level - the height at which Tostås is located

145 meter above sea level

195 meter above sea level

185 meter above sea level

235 meter above sea level



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The project’s method investigate the significance of the water 
infrastructure’s architecture for the city, with an extra focus 
on the water tower. As a background, the importance of the 
architecture of the water infrastructure is examined in general, 
in the form of creator of society, a tool for colonization, a 
tool for democracy and a fundamental prerequisite for the 
health of society. A closer examination is made of the water 
tower’s architectural qualities, and what they mean in terms 
of landmark and symbol. This exploration takes place through 
the theoretical background of the subject, and then leads me 
on to a design exploration where a water tower is created 
that responds to the theory.

As Bernd and Hilla Becher has done, existing water towers 
are documented to note typologies and differences. To take 
their method further, not yet built water towers that have 
been part of the Värmdö competition are documented in the 
same way. After that, the same method is applied in form of 
imaginative water towers that are to be part of the analysis of 
what water towers look like, symbolize and allude to (Becher 
& Becher, 1988) (Sveriges Arkitekter, 2024).

After that, with the exploration just made as a background, 
design proposals are made to explore different opportunities. 
Qualities water towers should have, found in the theory are 
taken in consideration when choosing design version. Further 
decoration and relief design is made by drawing workshops.

METHOD & TOOLS



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Elevations of existing water towers with their place and building year

Helsingborg
1960

Botkyrka
1957

Linköping
1910

Landskrona
1970

Hässleholm
1910

Gnesta
1910

Oxelösund
1899

Sandviken
1930

Trelleborg
1912

Kungsör
1910

Helsingborg (demolished)
1906

Malmö
1916



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0

Skala 1:1300

20 40(m)
Elevations of water towers from the competition in Värmdö 2024, marked with their competition name

SpqhGläntan

Porta pelagus

Stapeln

Hemmesta bågar Samothrake

Mirage

HällendubbelVV

VirvelHemmesta kronan

Droppen där vattnet bor



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ANALYSIS OF THREE WATER 
TOWERS FROM DIFFERENT 
TIMES

EARLY WATER TOWERS
HÄSSLEHOLM - 1910

Clear division of a stone masonry base, a brick shaft and 
a green copper crown, a design typology of water towers 
that dominates this time period. The tower is house-like with 
symmetry and holes in the facade that forms windows. The 
facade has relief’s, perforations, ornaments and shifting in 
colour that detail the facade. The volume is vertical and is in 
most cases more or less designed as a tall cylinder.

MEDIUM-OLD WATER TOWERS
LANDSKRONA - 1970

The three-parted typology of a base, shaft and crown is still 
present, but in different form. The base is long, often in form 
of pillars or legs. The shaft is shorter and more sculptural. 
The crown is small and similar looking to the rest of the parts 
of the water tower, especially when it comes to materials. 
The materials do not differ between the different parts of 
the tower, and is now in almost every case in concrete. The 
silhouette is sculptural and symmetric around an vertical 
tangent. The volume is vertical, but not shaped as a cylinder.

NEWER WATER TOWERS
STAPELN - 2024

The three-parted typology has gone lost, more or less. What 
is kept is the base, often in form of pillars or legs. The hole 
volume is sculptural and playful with little details in form 
of relief’s, perforations, ornaments or shifting in colour that 
detail the facade. The water tower is not symmetrical around 
a vertical tangent, and not too symmetrical in its elevations 
either. The material is still concrete, but now often coloured. 
The volume doesn’t have to be vertical and a square-like or 
horizontal volume is more and more common.



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WATER TOWERS AS A 
TYPOLOGY

Water towers are and have always been a shell covering the 
function of the tower. Inside, there’s a high reservoir, standing 
on pillars, having stairs leading up to it. The shell has had 
different aesthetics and purposes over time, which is shown on 
the three towers on the left hand side. 

The earliest water towers are tall and three-parted with 
high detailing. During the mid-20s’ the volumes of the tower 
reservoirs come to get larger. The three-parted volume is still 
present, but the proportions are different. Going to modern 
water towers, the volumes are still large, but the three-parted 
typology have more or less gone lost, and the typology has 
gone to be more sculptural than before. But going from being 
tall, high towers in the earliest water towers, the volumes are 
nowadays more often horizontal in their form, and not as 
neat. The detailing is still present, but not on the same level as 
it once have been. Material-wise the water towers have gone 
from having a wide range of differentiation, including colours 
and technicalities. In the mid 20s’, the material was always 
grey concrete. Nowadays the material is most often concrete, 
but the colours can differentiate.



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The design laboration is investigating what a 
water tower looks like and how it possibly can look. 
The delimitations for the laboration are that every 
tower has to be 30 meters high, without materials 
and have to be placed in the same spot in nature 
similar to Tranås. 

What can be discussed from the laboration is how 
much of infrastructure the different towers looks 
like, how inviting they are, how transparent they 
are and how heavy they are.



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Diagram of existing water towers and designs of water towers from the Värmdö 
competition. 

The water towers are placed in a diagram showing whether they are horizontal 
or vertical, house-like or infrastructural like. The existing water towers are more 
vertical and house-like, while the competition-designs are more horizontal and 
infrastructure-like.



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Diagram of water towers from the first design elaboration made in the master 
thesis.

The water towers are placed on the right side of the diagram, meaning they are 
vertical. The designs are more infrastructural-like than house-like.



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A WATER TOWER SHOULD

Symbolize relationship 
... with infrastructure, with care, with society, with humans, 

non-humans and more than humans

Act including
... to increase the awareness of the waters value as a vital 

source

Have a tall silhouette
... with good salience for citizens and tourists to relate Tranås 

to

Teach the perplexed infrastructure
... by showing its function so that understanding is created. 
That could in turn lead to a “yintopia” understanding of water 

infrastructure

Be open for the society to visit
... in an non-colonisational and democratic way, welcome 
the whole society no matter class, location, gender or age to 
visit and take part of the experience and the learnings from 

infrastructure

Be built of sustainable material
... standing many, many years.  Both for environmental reasons, 

but also to stand as a monument when obsolete



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medium detailing

low detailing

high detailing seen from far

seen from close



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RESULT

The result of the thesis is a water tower situated on 
Junkaremålen in Tranås and has a capacity of 400 m³ water. 
The reservoir complements the existing reservoir on Höganloft 
and is able to provide all citizens, including integration of the 
citizens living in Tostås.

ARCHITECT WORKING WITH 
WATER INFRASTRUCTURE

As an architect working with the engineering art I deliberately 
chose to work with the concept of the pine trees and 
their appearance. Another choice has been to make the 
infrastructure a designed object, working with infrastructural 
love to create more affection between humans of the site, 
non-humans that visit and the more than human structure. By 
deliberately design, decorate and relief the water tower, the 
reciprocity between art and society contribute to make the 
water tower a more significant object. The concept together 
with the carefully designed piece will create a bond to the 
site and the citizens, which can contribute to make the water 
tower a stronger symbol and landmark of Tranås.

FUNCTIONING

The water tower consists of a substructure and a 
superstructure. The substructure consists of the high reservoir 
and a truss which it is held by. The superstructure consists of 
a outer shell strengthened by a truss on the inside. Outside 
of the superstructure is a metal net that also is part of the 
superstructure, and is a transparent shell enabling a view from 
the tower (see the axonometry for a construction explanation). 
The reservoir is rotated around its vertical axis for hydraulic 
reason. The sub- and superstructure are almost rotated 
around its vertical axis, this is for clarity, understanding and 
educational reasons, as well as for the material economy.

The water tower is free of electricity in its own function, but 
need the pump of the water treatment plant to receive water 
to its spare magazine.

As this water tower is open, there is no need for electrical 
ventilation. It is enough with the natural ventilation.

INFRASTRUCTURAL LOVE

The water tower allows the infrastructure to advance in the 
foreground, instead of under ground. This is made through 

having both pipes, construction and reservoir visible, and 
everyone visiting can see the construction ageing, faulting, 
being repaired and working. All part of the water towers life, 
in line with the “yintopia”-way of seeing infrastructure. The 
visitor has to adapt to the water towers structure, walk under 
and over the truss and its beams to be able to visit every 
corner of the construction.

The water towers open design enables to connect humans to 
earth and its more-than-human powers, where water is one 
of them.

STORYTELLING

Creating an open infrastructural object, both in terms of 
design of construction and in terms of including the public, 
the storytelling mouth to mouth and by traces on site can 
thicken the present of the water tower and its role in Tranås.

As a resistance to the fast-paced society and technology, 
the water tower is designed to re-conceptualize and to be 
experienced on the way up, regardless of taking stairs 
or elevator. Therefore both of them are open, and the 
construction and function is to be experienced on the way 
up to the top. The form is active, expressing both disposition 
and capacity.

APPEARANCE

The location is chosen partly for hydraulically advantageous 
reasons, but also to improve the possibilities for the tower 
to become a social symbol for Tranås. The tower is placed 
in sight lines from intersecting streets to Tranås’ main street.

The design of the water tower has deliberately been made 
to create shadows, silhouettes and an appealing appearance 
both from distance and close up. Therefore, the design has 
construction, shadow-elements and silhouette-elements 
layered over each other, all contributing to an interesting 
shape and design with a broad set of qualities. 

LANDMARK

With the concept that the water tower follows, the tower 
blends into its place, but also gets a protruding shape 
compared to its surroundings by the tower bending to the 
crowns of the pines and extending its own crown over the 
pines, so as not to disturb the place.



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Based on the landmark design strategies: visual, semantic 
and structural, the tower has been designed to have good 
conditions to become a landmark for Tranås.

The capacity to see the water tower has been worked on 
by creating a silhouette that rises above the treetops on the 
site and is visible in the landscape. Its black colour is visible 
both in nature and in its contrast against the sky. The shape 
and silhouette is based on the shape of the pines, but stands 
out in the surroundings thanks to its colour and its silhouette 
against the sky.

The semantic has been worked on by creating a designed, 
embossed and shadow-creating object that will contribute to 
making the place a more significant place for Tranås.

The structural has been worked on by showing off the 
construction and infrastructure and creating curiosity. This is 
clearly visible up close to the water tower. To create a similar 
structural curiosity to the water tower from afar, the semi-
transparent metal mesh has been placed on top, which both 
sounds and creates curiosity about what is happening inside. 
Another structural choice is the location of the tower in the 
city. The tower is located on a hill and its location is within 
sight lines from several intersecting streets to Tranås’ main 
street.



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SUBSTRUCTURE

SUBSTRUCTURE

SUPERSTRUCTURE

RESERVOIR

SUPERSTRUCTURE

0 Sk
al

a 
1:1

60
016

32

64
m



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Left side: The axonometric shows the construction and the function of the water 
tower.

Right side: The water tower from the path up to it, in its surrounfing forest



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Elevation towards south west

0

Skala 1:400

4 8 16 m

A
A



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Left side: The elevation shows the new water tower in its surroundings.

Right side: The view on the top platform, above the reservoir.



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Section A-A

06 06

05 05

04 04

03 03

02 02

01 01

0

Skala 1:400

4 8 16 m



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Left side: The section A-A shows the construction and the inside of the tower.

Right side: A zoomed in section of the left side section. It shows the construction 
and the public use and life in the building

0

Skala 1:100

1 2 4 m



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Left side: The room under the reservoir

Right side: The staircase on the way up to the platforms and the top of the water 
tower.



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The illustration plan shows the water tower in its surrounding area and the paths 
leading up to it.

0

Skala 1:1500

15 30 60 m



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Left side: The view from the Town Hall, right by the plaza that is connected to 
the main street.

Right side: The view from the plaza towards the water tower, east of the plaza.



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Plan 01



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The floorplans shows the interior of the water tower, its function and the different 
infrastructural objects on the way up. See where the plans are taken on section 
A-A.

Plan 02

0

Skala 1:200

2 4 8 m



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Plan 04



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Plan 04

0

Skala 1:200

2 4 8 m



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Plan 05



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Plan 06

0

Skala 1:200

2 4 8 m



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Left side: The picture shows the interior of the top floor of the water tower, with its 
high walls and open roof towards the sky.

Right side: The view from the riverside walk along Svartån, where the water tower 
is in the sightline from part of the path along the river.



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Left side: The picture shows the water tower from below the hill and the forest 
it stands on.

Right side: The elevations are from -45° angle, from straight ahead and from 
45° angle of the water tower. This shows how the meeting with the ground looks 
different from different angles, and it gets clear how visitors can enter between 
its light feet.



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DISCUSSION

UNDERSTANDING 
ARCHITECTURE IN RELATION 
TO THE ENGINEERING 
FEATURE OF WATER 
INFRASTRUCTURE

One interesting aspect that Granath (2022) is mentioning 
is that water towers are described as sculptural monuments 
and something that is standing out and noticed in nature, 
meanwhile other water infrastructural installations such as 
water treatment plants and pump stations are described as  
engineering art and installations “formed to fit in nature”.

One thought that arose in me when reading about 
ornamentation, love and symbolic values of buildings (Izenour 
et al. 1977) was if it could be so that we have decorated 
buildings that we are grateful to (schools and museums 
with knowledge, water towers with vital water, churches that 
have contact with God, etc.). And in contrast to the earlier 
studied water towers that was built around the 19th century 
that had a high level of ornamentation, love and symbolic 
values, resources today are taken for granted, so today we 
do not show as much appreciation and gratitude in the form 
of ornamentation, love and symbolic values on these kind of 
buildings, water infrastructural buildings and installations 
included. 

Another theory as to why water infrastructure and its degree 
of embellishment and symbolic values looks the way it does 
is that it may be a political, neoliberal, choice, where money 
goes before aesthetics (Frichot et al. 2023) (Izenour et al. 
1977). This in turn creates a vicious circle where this political 
choice leads to worse aesthetic values, which in turn leads to 
it water infrastructure not being part of the utopian picture 
or perception(Le Guin 2015), which in turn leads to the “not 
in my backyard phenomenon”, which in turn leads to the 
aesthetics becoming even more depressed, which in turn leads 
to water infrastructure being something not worth putting 
money on, and so it goes on.

Reading about the secrecy of water infrastructure (Svenskt 
Vatten, 2022), another thought about the development of 
the aesthetics of water towers was if the reason that water 
towers  are not designed with too much ornamentation, love 
and symbolic values is because water towers are a classified 
business and that government therefore don’t want to make 
them nice, to not create attention. But then, one could ask 

themselves  why competitions of water towers often are 
announced.

Saari (2015) argues how important it is to increase the 
gratitude towards our vital water in the future to fight the 
scarcity and over use of water. This together with the thoughts 
that arose in me reading for this thesis made me do the 
water tower as a designed and reliefed infrastructural object, 
making it a proud piece and landmark of Tranås. This is also 
done with the hope that the love and care for the design of 
water towers can be taken back, together with the gratitude 
for the provision of water in our societies. 

SIGNIFICANCE OF WATER 
INFRASTRUCTURE’S 
ARCHITECTURE TO SOCIETY

From what Jonsson (2022) describes about the society, 
that it forms us and “claims our souls”, and how we also are 
dependent on it and its functions, one can conclude that the 
invisible medium in the society that Jonsson (2022) is talking 
about is the infrastructure. One can replace the word society 
that he uses to the word “infrastructure”, and conclude that 
infrastructure creates the individual, and the individual can 
not be without infrastructure who “changes its diapers”. The 
society require a secure relationship with infrastructure, 
“preferably so secure that she can take it for granted and not 
have to think about it”. And the fact that we preferably should 
have the relationship so secure that we can take it for granted 
draws parallels to how Frichot (et al 2023) talks about how 
dependent we are of infrastructure, and how we notice this 
relationship once it stops working.

Kungl Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen (1967) describes 
how high towers had always had a mark of social symbol, 
symbol of community and a monument. Jonsson (2022)
discusses how society is something common that all in that 
society are dependent on. As a conclusion of these arguments 
one can say that people of a society feel that they are and 
that they represent their water tower, their symbol of their 
common society.

Discussing how society and infrastructure is something 
expressed as a common owning one could discuss how we 
today are very individualized. With this, one can question 
whether it is a reason why you don’t see much of the water 



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infrastructure today, that the common is gone in society and 
thus also the common infrastructure. This is an argument that 
Pohlar (2010) and the phrase “not in my backyard” support, 
that no one wants to share things, but only experience that it 
is private and privately owned.

With this as a background, concluding that the infrastructure 
is the society - a hole common, I have through my design 
argued that the water tower is a place the common should 
access and take part of. For fighting the “not in my backyard”-
syndrome I have, as mentioned earlier, designed the object 
as the reverse of a stripped of design as water towers today 
normally have, and instead decorated it with relief and 
ornamentation to make it a stronger symbol and a proud 
piece of Tranås.

ASPECTS OF THE FUTURE

The water takes and has always taken a complex, secret 
detour from the waterworks to the final consumer. This 
finding combined with the fact that in the future there will be 
problems with periodic drought (Frichot et al, 2023) means 
that building more water towers to increase reservoir capacity 
(which distributes extra during drought) and shorten the long 
and complex path to the end consumer could be a solution 
to raise awareness and prevent periodic droughts. This would 
also mean that infrastructure is shown more which also could 
raise awareness of the water shortage and savings in society.

INTERPRETED 
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN IN 
WATER INFRASTRUCTURE 
AND THE EFFECTS IT CAN 
GET

Looking back at what Frichot et al. (2023) wrote, it is 
important to use design and architecture to create active 
form in the in our contemporary neoliberalistic world to make 
a change, especially as infrastructure historically has been 
depressed from architectural drawings and thought.

INFRASTRUCTURAL LOVE

By allowing the construction and function to be visible, 
take place and to advance in the foreground, the humans, 
non-humans and more-than-humans can interact with 

each other in the tower, and hopefully an responsive and 
emphasis expression of care can create relations between 
them. Hopefully, this will in turn lead to bigger appreciation 
of the water towers vital role in society and contribute to 
more responsible water use. To show the construction and the 
infrastructure of the water tower is a decision made to create 
a “yintopia” attitude towards water tower, which all is part of 
the caring and loving attitude towards infrastructure.

APPEARANCE

The goal has been to not let economics or politics status of 
today overrun the expression of meaning that water towers 
have. This is done by using tools as layering of construction, 
shadow-elements and silhouette-elements over each other, 
as well as doing a more complex and inviting shape than 
infrastructural objects normally allows to have.

The appearance is done with the landmark salience 
measurements in focus (Li, Zhang, Fang, Lu, & Shaw, 
2014) (Peters, Wu, & Winter, 2010), but as Jonsson (2022) 
mentions, it is hard to see what importance an art object 
have for society straight away. Instead the culture and the 
storytelling around it has to have its time and path before 
the signification can be concluded. Therefore, I can argue I 
have done my best to make the water tower of Tranås a 
good landmark with the landmark salience measurements as 
a method and background, but if the result was successful 
one can only say when a certain amount of time has passed.



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WRITTEN SOURCES

REFERENCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Frichot, H., Carbonell, A., Frykholm, A., & Karam, S. (Red.) (2023). Infrastructural Love - Caring for Our Architectural Support Systems. 
BIRKHÄUSER.

Izenour, S., Scott Brown, D., & Venturi, R. (1977). Learning From Las Vegas. MIT Press. 

Svedinger, B. (1989). Stadens tekniska infrastruktur - en kunskapsöversikt. Statens råd för byggnadsforskning.

Jonsson, S. (2022). Den otyglade skönheten - Fem saker konsten vet om demokratin. Norstedts.

Kungl Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen (Nr VA 19). (1967). Vattentorn i Sverige. 

Bjur, H. (1988). Vattenbyggnadskonst i Göteborg under 200 år. Göteborgs VA-verk.

Andersson, B. B. (1972). Vattentorn. Chalmers Tekniska Högskola.

Linder, E. (2017). Rain Chain. Chalmers Tekniska Högskola.

Granath, K. (2022). Vägen till rening. Arkitektur, 3, start 21–27.

Bornstein, P. (2022). Vattnets vardagliga högtidlighet. Arkitektur, 3, 33–40. 

Lyth, J. & Wingårdh, G. (2022). Arkitekten beskriver Helsingborgs vattentorn. Arkitektur, 3, 41–41. 

Zawieja, J. (2022). “Vi jobbar. med kantareller” Arkitektur, 3, 42–50. 

Becher, B. & Becher, Hilla. (1988). Water Towers. The MIT Press.

Persson, K. M. (2006). Att dimensionera vattentorn - To design water towers. Tidsskriften vatten, 4, 341-354.

Örebro kommun. (2023). Vattentornet Svampen. 

Saari, H. (2015). The Urban Infrastructural Landscape in Transition.

Li, Q., Zhang, X. Fang, Z., Lu, S., & Shaw, S. (2014). An assessment method for landmark recognition time in real scenes.

Peters, D., Wu, Y., & Winter, S. (2010). Testing Landmark Identification Theories in Virtual Environments



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DIGITAL SOURCES

FIGURES & PICTURES

Nationalencyklopedin. (n.d.). Infrastruktur. Nationalencyklopedin. https://www.ne.se/uppslagsverk/encyklopedi/lång/infrastruktur

Le Guin, U. K. (2015 april). Utopiyin, Utopiyang. Ursula K. Le Guins. https://www.ursulakleguin.com/blog/97-utopiyin-utopiyang 

Van der Ryn, S. & Cowan, S. (1996) Ecological Design Tenth Anniversary Edition. Island Press. https://dev.ecoguineafoundation.com/
uploads/5/4/1/5/5415260/ecological_design_10th_edition.pdf

Almqvist, H. & Lundgren, A. (2016). Vattnets väg - Göteborgs Stad. Göteborgs Stad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hJFQhdawZ8

Sveriges Arkitekter. (2024-01-22). Tävling om vattentorn är avgjord Sveriges Arkitekter. https://www.arkitekt.se/tavling/tavling-om-
vattentorn-pa-varmdo/

Nationalencyklopedin. (n.d.). Tranås. Nationalencyklopedin. https://www.ne.se/uppslagsverk/encyklopedi/lång/tranås

Skånska vattentornssällskapet. (n.d.). Vattentorn: Skåne. Skånska vattentornssällskapet. http://eber.se/vattentorn-skane/

Royal Djurgården. (n.d.) Kaknästornet - Ett av Stockholms mest kända landmärken. https://royaldjurgarden.se/attractions/kaknastornet/

Wikipedia. (2023). Vattentornet i Kalmar. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vattentornet_i_Kalmar

Statistiska Centralbyrån [SCB]. (2022). Små förändringar i vattenanvändningen. https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/statistik-efter-
amne/miljo/vattenanvandning/vattenuttag-och-vattenanvandning-i-sverige/pong/statistiknyhet/vattenuttag-och-vattenanvandning-i-
sverige-2020/

Statistiska Centralbyrån [SCB]. (2024). Folkmängd efter region, kön och år. https://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/pxweb/sv/ssd/
START__BE__BE0101__BE0101A/BefolkningNy/table/tableViewLayout1/

Figure 1: Digitala Museum, “En grupp soldater samlade kring en vattenbrunn. Bakom syns byggnader som tillhör Hälsinge regementes 
kaserngård i Mohed”, Downloaded: 02 May, 2024. [Photography]. https://digitaltmuseum.se/021016970989/en-grupp-soldater-samlade-
kring-en-vattenbrunn-bakom-syns-byggnader-som

Figure 2: Digitala Museum, “Skara. Vattentornet vid Eskilsgatan.”, Downloaded: 02 May, 2024. [Photography]. https://digitaltmuseum.
se/021017205856/skara-vattentornet-vid-eskilsgatan

Figure 3: Digitala Museum, “Vattentornet.”, Downloaded: 02 May, 2024. [Photography]. https://digitaltmuseum.se/021016228588/
vattentornet

Figure 4 Wikipedia (2021). Project for an ideal street, by Pierre Patte, 1769. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Project_for_an_
ideal_street,_by_Pierre_Patte,_1769.png#filehistory

All pictures, illustrations and diagrams not noted with source are taken/made by me.



First and foremost, I extend my sincere gratitude to all individuals who have contributed to the completion of this thesis. I would like to 
express my appreciation to my supervisor and examiner, Daniel Norell, for his support throughout the semester. I am also grateful to 
Tranås Municipality for their sharing content and interest for this thesis.

I extend special thanks to Skå