The nation-states that emerged in the former European territories of the Ottoman Empire during the long nineteenth century placed urban reconstruction at the heart of their modernization programs. As the setting for intensive state-building activity, the cities were to house the new national institutions and had to meet the needs of the ever-growing bureaucracies. On the ideological side, it was in the urban setting that governments could most effectively promote the new national identity by introducing a unified visual code and a standardized material culture. The reconstruction and expansion of urban fabrics were hailed as a victory over a civilizational enemy and a daring first step toward achieving modernity. In the Bulgarian nation-state, established in 1878 in the aftermath of a war between the Russian and Ottoman empires, the modernization discourse was focused on the capital city’s historic center. Sofia, one of the oldest urban agglomerations in Southeast Europe, had emerged and evolved around a thermal spring. During the Ottoman period in Sofia’s history, the area of the thermal spring, known as Banyabaşı, housed several public baths and other water facilities. Banyabaşı was at the center of a water culture that permeated everyday life in Ottoman Sofia. With the establishment of the Bulgarian nation-state, however, space and place would be reconceptualized in a way that prioritized nation over nature. This paper traces the debate about the making of Bath Square, modern Sofia’s representative center. I show how over the course of three and a half decades, from the late 1870s until the early 1910s, Sofia’s historic center was stripped of its Ottoman-era water facilities. Even the city’s most iconic structure, the main thermal bath, did not stand a chance against the march of modernity and the construction of Bath Square as a symbol of the nation-state. The new buildings that were erected at Bath Square in the 1910s represented neither the relationship between nature and culture nor the city’s rich Ottoman legacy in place-making and natural resource management. Sofia’s modern center showcased the success of the nation-state and the steadfast pursuit of modernity.