Tres Aguas comprises the transformation of three distinctive places in the city of Toledo. In each place in turn, Iglesias has created a dramatic interplay between architecture, sculpture and water.
Iglesias conceived the project – her most ambitious work to date – as an ensemble. Movement is a vital part of the work, both the experience of walking between the different places, and the movement of water within each place in turn.
Strategically sited on a rocky outcrop above the River Tagus, Toledo was for several centuries the most important cultural and religious centre in Spain, renowned during the period known as 'la convivencia’ for the relatively harmonious co-existence of three different faiths, Moorish, Jewish and Christian. Over time, the city gradually turned its back on the river down below. Tres Aguas brings the river in to the body of the city once more.
A recommended route to experience Tres Aguas leads visitors alongside the fast-flowing waters of the river beneath the city to a restored water tower, then back to one of the busiest public squares in the centre of the historic city, dominated by its imposing 15th century cathedral, and then on to a quiet interior within a normally closed convent higher up in the city.
Each of the three places is made with the same three elements: the materials of architecture, stone and brick; the durable forms of cast steel sculpture; and the fluid nature of water. Water courses over and through the cast forms which resemble the overgrown bed of an ancient river or a decomposing vegetal mass, with a complex tangle of roots and branches.
Image: The Gothic cathedral in Toledo's town hall square, Plaza del Ayuntamiento, reflected in Tres Aguas (2014). Photograph: Attilio Maranzano (2015)
