Steps to Water - The Ancient Stepwells of India

Morna Livingston

Princeton Architectural Press

2002

120 páginas

4h 0m

ISBN-10: 1568983247

In this broad historical and cultural overview, photographer and scholar Livingston (Philadelphia Univ.) shares her passion for western Indian stepwells and stepped ponds. A distinctive, often highly decorated communal Hindu architecture object, with origins in the seventh century in the semiarid regions of Gujarat and Rajasthan, stepwells reached their peak from 900 to 1300 C.E. as elaborate water buildings that were invested with ritual and social meanings. These passive water collection systems, designed to preserve monsoon rains, were modified by Muslims and Mughals into the mid-19th century, when British colonialism effectively shut them down. The erudite text presents building types, engineering, functions, art, ecology, and changes through the centuries, including sanitation and preservation concerns. Livingston's poignant photographs capture the decayed and neglected condition of many sites. Maps, a chronology, a glossary, and even a bibliography of stepwell literature make this the definitive work in English. Recommended for vernacular architecture and Indian historical collections