WATER-WORKS

Starting in 1995, Prof. Bone directed a Cooper Union team doing research into the New York City Water Supply. For several years this team worked with the City of New York to organizing a vast archives that documents the architecture and engineering of the system. In 2000 the Cooper Union mounted a exhibition on the subject (see NY Times 1/8/00) and based upon this work the Chanin School of Architecture and the Monacelli Press published a book entitled Water-Works, The Architecture and Engineering of the New York City Water Supply (2006). The book, includes magnificent visual documentation of the building of one of the great urban water supplies in the world and is supported with essays on history, infrastructure, water supply and resource management by Albert Appleton, Prof. Kevin Bone, Dr. Peter Gleick, and Gerard Koeppel. In connection with this publication The Irwin S. Chanin School hosted an evening in the Great Hall for scholars and scientists to discuss global water issues.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.