India: Water Architecture

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Structures erected on the Indian subcontinent to collect water express a search for spatiality that ventures beyond functional prerequisites to reveal a deep bond with water’s spiritual value and rituals and practices related to water. Built from the 6th to 20th centuries, stepwells and tanks exalt the importance of their environment and propagate the symbolic imagery of cultures thousands of years old. Unfortunately, many of the structures have since been abandoned. Yet they exemplify the crystallisation of new architectural models and embody a vast and unique patrimony. This book seeks to address a series of though largely abandoned, can water structures continue to ensure the identarian image of each environment and community? That is, can these subterranean constructions―originally designed to respond to functional needs, but also intended to exercise a political and symbolic role over the territory―still enhance the importance of their surroundings? Furthermore, is there harmony between specific configurations―baoli, kund, and tank―and a form, aimed at celebrating the ‘creative void’ at the origin of everything?