Taming the Leviathan: The epic of the domestication of the world and Peter Behrens's Gibraltar Dam

This paper examines the symbolic and monumental significance of water in-frastructure as an expression of humanity’s ambition to dominate nature. By exploring cases such as Peter Behrens’s Gibraltar Dam and Soviet hydrological projects, it considers how water infrastructure has transcended its functional purpose, embodying the “domestication of the world” by asserting control over water, a force both essential and potentially destructive. As hallmarks of the Anthropocene, these structures represent modernity’s rationalising spirit, show-casing both technical prowess and a cultural ideology of human supremacy over natural forces. However, in the context of escalating environmental crises, this article questions whether the subjugation of water remains the only viable ap-proach in contemporary design.