Britt Jovanovski
University of Newcastle
Typology of Baths
This paper approaches a cultural understanding of water from a perspective of participation and experiencing through the architectural typology of baths. This typology has been an integral part of a diverse range of cultures for the last 5000 years. Though the form and significance, etiquette and siting change with cultural and technological shifts, temporally and cross-culturally the one essential element is water. This paper will discuss how this typology functioned in the past – what social and cultural significance was attached to it, and in turn to the place of water in our everyday lives.
Is it possible to re-vision this typology, manipulating it as a means to engendering a cultural shift towards a relationship of reciprocity, of the interconnectedness between ourselves, water, the built environment and nature?
Biography
Britt is in the first year of a Masters in Architecture at Newcastle University (supervisor – Michael Ostwald). Her research is based on the architectural typology of baths as a cross-cultural typology with a primary focus of water. What role has this typology played in the past, what does it reveal of changing attitudes and relationships to water (and by extension, the natural world), culturally and socially? Can we use such insights to re-evaluate our assumptions of the role of water and its place within our everyday lives, in our homes and built environment, to effect a cultural shift towards a renewed relationship with water. This is in contrast to our present methods of management, which utilise force, prohibition and bribery, where water is a resource disconnected visually and physically from place, and where communities are disempowered by lack of control on the way water is brought into and taken out of the home and the local environment.
Email:britt.jovanovski@studentmail.newcastle.edu.au