Reflecting on the relationship between water and architecture means opening scenarios and sectors of investigation so vast and detailed as to discourage any sector of research that is not necessarily circumscribed and narrow. Effectively, the disciplines connected with this pairing range from urban studies – bearing in mind that the genesis of many cities is fundamentally and necessarily linked to the present of water, whether it be in the form of a river, a lake or the sea – to the scientific solution of the problems connected to climate change dominated by the excess or scarcity of water, to hydraulic engineering, construction engineering, hydrogeological studies… and we could go on at length if we were not focused, for coherence with our editorial mission, on investigating the figurative and imaginary value of water with respect to the disciplines of architectural design. But even if we limit the field to the compositive interferences between solid and fluid, between the fixity of the buildings and the mobility of the water, the categories of examination still appear numerous and diversified. We can discuss the behavior, solutions and types moving from the castle to the riverside, from the harbor to the dam, from the bridge to the garden, from the aqueduct to the fountain, exploring an infinity of case histories without even attempting a scientific type of approach. Probably the best way out of so much fluid indeterminacy consists of viewing water as one of the main elements of the landscape, whether urban or natural, and treating the topic coherently in terms of its compositive implications, as an extraordinary element in a narrative that, in its interaction with the land, cannot be ignored.

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