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Phronologies of Networked Water: Copenhagen

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Environment, Agency, and Technology in Urban Life since c.1750

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Abstract

By way of water’s role in urban space, the chapter will revisit the notion of hybrids from two points: first, these ideas of hybridity in themselves reconstructed the binaries they set out to eradicate, and second, if the distributed agency that followed hybrid thinking actually eroded the notion of agency as a relational term. The discussion will be based on a case of spatial practices of water in a century of Copenhagen’s history—trams, plumbers, bathing halls, and bathrooms, respectively—and the processes through which they contribute to urban transformation. Following these changes, the concept of ‘phronologies’ is proposed as a hybrid approach that might counter the abovementioned issues, while still being in a state of conceptual development itself.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Copenhagen Municipal Council 1897, 66.

  2. 2.

    Besides Saxogade Bathing Hall (1903), this included Helsingørsgade Bathing Hall (1908), Sofiegade Bathing Hall (1909) and Sjællandsgade Bathing Hall (1917).

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  1. National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Mikkel Thelle

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  1. Mikkel Thelle
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Correspondence to Mikkel Thelle .

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  1. National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Mikkel Thelle

  2. National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Mikkel Høghøj

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Thelle, M. (2024). Phronologies of Networked Water: Copenhagen. In: Thelle, M., Høghøj, M. (eds) Environment, Agency, and Technology in Urban Life since c.1750. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46954-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46954-1_3

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