Why Mohammed I chose Madrid

It is still possible today to walk through the vestiges of the water journeys of Madrid, whose location was so much to the liking of Emir Muhammad I of Cordoba that he chose it as the site of a military enclave between 860 and 880, that is, two and a half centuries after the arrival of the Arabs on the Iberian Peninsula.  

The main reason seems to be the lushness of the site and the large number of small streams that criss-crossed it. These watercourses were transformed into a network of underground water, which allowed for the full supply not only of the original military settlement, but also, later on, of the entire population of the small town that became a village and capital of Spain.  

Casa Árabe, in collaboration with Casa de Velázquez and the French Institute, has organised an exhibition by the artist and architect Sara Kamalvand, "The Journeys of Water", which analyses this infrastructure in Madrid, not only from a technical point of view, but also examining the cultural legacy, from the origin of the network, when the Persian garden was invented, to its counterpart in Renaissance Spain.  

Kamalvand, who lives in Paris, told the exhibition presentation how in 2012 she founded HydroCity to carry out research projects on the "qanat", an ancient and abandoned irrigation network in Iran, the basis for the numerous workshops and lectures, publications and exhibitions she has given and presented in many European and African countries.  

Accompanied in the presentation by Karim Hauser and Monica Major, Kamalvand pointed out that this underground water network system, which in Madrid was called "viaje", was used for more than a thousand years before being discarded with the arrival of the industrial revolution. It is therefore a hydraulic heritage, whose infrastructure makes use of aquifers instead of surface water, giving rise to the civilisation of the hidden waters. Muslim expansion throughout the Mediterranean basin was in part made possible by the 'qanat', which gave rise to landscaped ecologies in arid landscapes, establishing a thriving horticultural economy.  

Kamalvand gives a comprehensive interpretation of what he calls invisible ruins, and accordingly undertakes the reconquest of a forgotten heritage. She deciphers this urban palimpsest, in search of the indestructible traces of societies that have succeeded each other in time and will continue to do so.  

Her exhibition takes place precisely at a time when an intense water shortage has become apparent in this Mediterranean basin. This is how the artist and architect takes a stand by presenting ancient knowledge, and the myths it conveys, as pragmatic and conceptual tools to address the contemporary challenges we face. A look back to push forward the challenges of the present.